Car Seat Headrest – Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) (Matador)

When you hear that an artist is releasing a re-reworked version of an old album you fear the worst. Why? Well, this is generally a sign they have run out of ideas. This does NOT apply to Will Toledo of Car Seat Headrest, who has just released an updated version of his 2011 album Twin Fantasy.

Despite being a four-piece band, Car Seat Headrest is the brainchild of singer/songwriter Will Toledo. Taking influence from the indie rock canon that includes the likes of Pavement, the project began in 2010 with Toledo self-releasing albums on Bandcamp. Back then, Toledo was recording music on his laptop in his bedroom and car leading to an output that was lo-fi and quite honestly very poor quality.

Twin Fantasy was one of these albums: and after going back to listen to the original as research for this review I can understand why Toledo would want to re-work it seven years later. Despite the songs being reasonably well written, the recordings are at points inaudible. I guess that’s what happens at nineteen when you can’t afford the luxuries a recording studio offers. Toledo saw this album as an unfinished work and that is why he has returned to it to update the songs, saying that it wasn’t until last year that he finally knew how to finish the album, with the benefit of having a full band and better budget this time around of course.

This brings me to the songs themselves, of which I must admit I was not initially familiar with from the original album. Twin Fantasy continues in the vain of the moody and introspective indie guitar pop tunes Toledo perfected so well on 2016’s Teens of Denial, a record which was one of the best of that year and one of the better rock albums in recent history.

The album began with My Boy (Twin Fantasy), a low-key indie guitar ballad that gradually builds with Toledo moving from deep vocals at the start, to falsetto, before climaxing with his teen angst styled scream that was such a feature on Teens of Denial. Then came Beach Life-In-Death, one of two songs on the album that are over ten minutes, a regular occurrence on Car Seat Headrest albums. This track is drenched with heavily reverbed guitar and because of its length offered the band a chance to jam out and throw everything at the song, much like in the way Neil Young used to do with Crazy Horse.

After the marathon that was the previous song, Stop Smoking (We Love You) was a bit of a comedown at only one minute twenty-nine seconds and really just acted as an interval before Sober to Death. This song had echoes of the Byrds about it with its gorgeous harmony vocal layers and distorted jangly guitar making it an early album highlight. This was then swiftly followed by the catchy indie pop of Nervous Young Inhumans. This was probably the most contemporary sounding song on the album with its use of synths and a strong bass line giving off a prominent commercial pop feel until at the halfway point it transformed into this spoken word track, a transition which allowed Toledo to show off his at times pretentious nature.

Although the first half of the album ended in a disappointing manner, Bodys brought the quality back up pretty quickly with its quirky lyrics and experimental rhythm making for a fun song to kick off the second half of the record. Then came what for mine is perhaps one of the best songs Toledo has written in Cute Thing. This is an indie anthem where Toledo stretches his vocal range to the limit, cheekily asks for Frank Ocean’s voice, and in turn, overall, showcases a song that harks back to the best years of the 60s California psychedelic rock scene.

The album then winded down with the dull plod of High to Death, the only track that didn’t really stand out to me of the ten, the mammoth sixteen-minute Crazy Horse-esque guitar epic Famous Prophets (Stars), and finally, the organ-drenched title track Twin Fantasy (Those Boys).

In summing up this updated 2018 version of Twin Fantasy, I do believe Toledo has by in large achieved what he set out to do in re-working this record. The production is obviously much better than the original given he has a full band and proper recording facilities at his disposal, while the album both sound-wise and lyrically, for the most part, continues on the success of Teens of Denial.

Some of the songs could have done with some trimming down, while Toledo’s songwriting fluctuates in places across the album, however, this is excusable when you remember this is a reworked replica of an album he wrote and recorded when he was just a teenager. Toledo himself has even admitted it was hard steeping back into the shoes of his teenage self and that there are lyrics on here he wouldn’t write again.

In the end, though, Toledo, in re-releasing this record finally got the chance to complete the album he imagined in 2011 and make it sound the way he wanted to all along, all be it seven years later. In doing so, he has also, to my ears, succeeded in completing a solid indie rock album that is a welcome addition to not only his catalogue but the canon of 21st-century indie rock albums.

Sam Smith