Album Review: Teens of Denial
There’s something alluring about the songs in Car Seat Headrest’s Teens of Denial. From an instrumental standpoint, the album isn’t exactly experimental, but the songs are often winding and the front man, Will Toledo, has enough of an indie-chic voice that when I first turned my pop-centric friend onto the album, I fully expected him to laugh. Yet, after I got him to listen to the album, he admitted that it had a special sound.
The more I listen to it, the more I’m convinced that this album is the anthem of a generation—not necessarily my generation, but for any contemporary adolescent looking for a perfect musical facsimile of themselves. It’s gritty and punk; it’s methodical and introspective; it’s melancholic and life-affirming. It often runs through all these emotions in a single line. At one point Toledo describes his inability to express his emotions, carried by the sound of moaning horns and a beat that is almost frustratingly on-the-verge-of-but-never-will erupt, when he finally lets loose and belts “I give up” until his voice runs rough.
The more I listen to it, the more I’m convinced that this album is the anthem of a generation—not necessarily my generation, but for any contemporary adolescent looking for a perfect musical facsimile of themselves.
In the album, Toledo distills teenage life into two sides: Drugs and Angst. Sex, which should be the third of the triumvirate, is almost completely left out except for its reference in “Unforgiving Girl (She’s Not An).” Which is weird, because Will Toledo is gay, so this nod to heterosexuality almost comes off as satirical. The opening track, “Fill in the Blank” serves as a perfect introduction to band’s ethos. Toledo sings “I’m so sick of (fill in the blank),” and there he sums up the general theme behind the whole album. As the band plays down the track list, their concerns shift from the extremely general to the spine-chillingly specific.
No better is this seen than on the two most drug-concerned songs on the album, “Destroyed By Hippie Powers” and “Drugs with Friends.” These follow each other in succession. In “Destroyed,” Will sings that “I am freaking out in my mind/in a house that isn’t mine,” whereas in “Drugs with Friends” he invites us deeply into the specific events of a bad trip, moping that “Last Friday I took acid and mushrooms/I did not transcend, I felt like a walking piece of shit/in a stupid-looking jacket”.
Teenage angst is usually derided, and rightfully so: it’s a temporary feeling brought on by acne, by soaring hormones, by the sense that the gilt of childhood is chipping away. Toledo no doubt realizes this quick and strangely violent shift with lines such as “What happened to that chubby little kid who smiled so much and loved The Beach Boys?/What happened is I killed that fucker and I took his name and I got new glasses”, but this doesn’t keep him from treating his topic—cliché and overdone as it is - with an extreme respect and attention to detail.
Until listening to this album, I really didn’t get the appeal of hearing a song that felt like it was describing you. But on Teens of Denial, a lot of my teenage life, in all its awkwardness and stupidity, is crooned about in the same syntax with which your own tired seventeen-year-old mind might think about it. Will Toledo is 25, but this doesn’t detract from the aching honesty of his lyrics. It achieves relatability without pandering, emotion without sappiness and embraces self-deprecation without the customary sloppy songwriting. The songs are fun. Sonically, the band draws a lot from alt-rock standards like Slint and The Strokes, and drummer Andrew Katz’s beat is outstanding.
Toledo could ditch this gig and take up poetry, because his words cut so closely. To his fans, though, that day would be a sad one, because without his lyrics the band’s songs just wouldn’t be as badass. There’s a moment in “Drugs with Friends” when Toledo is being interrogated by his dad and Jesus, who both whine to him “Who are you to go against the word of our father? Who are you?” Toledo stops holding back his anger, and responds, screaming “The scum of the Earth!” I saw a shiver go down my friend’s spine when he heard that.