The Scholars is the new studio album by the indie band Car Seat Headrest, released on May 2nd, 2025. I think this album was alright, unlike how Black Country, New Road, a similar band to Car Seat Headrest, did with their album Forever Howlong.
Car Seat Headrest is an indie rock band led by Will Toledo on vocals, guitar, piano, and synthesizers. Its other members are Ethan Ives on guitar and backing vocals, Seth Dalby on bass, and Andrew Katz on drums and backing vocals.
Car Seat Headrest is known for making indie music with hits such as Twin Fantasy (Face to Face), Teens of Denial, and How to Leave Town.
I also hyped up the album a lot. I stayed up until midnight on May 1st to listen to it the minute it released on May 2nd.
The first song, and latest single, titled, “CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You).” In my opinion, this is a powerful opening to the album and I really thought The Scholars was gonna be amazing when I heard how good it was. I gave it a 8/10.
The other songs, “Devereaux,” “Lady Gay Approximately,” “The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That Man),” and “Equals,” did not stand out to me as much as the rest of the songs on The Scholars.
“Gethsemane” is the sixth song on The Scholars, and the third-longest with a runtime of 10:51, and it was the first single Car Seat Headrest released for the album. This was a good song and I thought it really captured what Car Seat Headrest was going for with the David Bowie-like sound of this album. I did listen to this single when it came out but I didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics. When I looked at the lyrics for this listen, I noticed there were a lot of religious references. I gave this song a 9/10.
“Reality” is the 2nd longest song on The Scholars with a runtime of 11:13. This was not a single on the album and I was very excited for this, and the next track, to release because they are both long songs and Car Seat Headrest has a history of making long songs that are really good, like their song “Famous Prophets (Stars)” off of Twin Fantasy. However, this song did not meet my expectations. It was a good song but not a masterpiece like “Famous Prophets (Stars)” or “Beach Life-In-Death.” I gave this song a 7/10
The final song I wanted to talk about was “Planet Desperation,” which is the longest song on the album with a runtime of 18:52. I was very disappointed when I finished the song. It was very monotonous and boring. When the song finished I felt unsatisfied. As mentioned before Car Seat Headrest has made amazing songs of this length in the past, but it just wasn’t the same. They didn’t capture the emotion like Famous Prophets did, and with a name as emotional as that I really expected it to be very heart-wrenching and sad. I gave this song a 6/10, I think this is one of the worst songs Car Seat Headrest has made.
Overall, the album was just okay. It had 2 songs that were really good and the rest were kind of alright. This album gets a 7/10 for me. The Scholars can be streamed on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music.
