BRB

TFW

NBD

IMHO

LOL

CAR SEAT HEADREST

"Vincent" single

(Matador Records)

With a long intro that both overtly evokes and cheekily tweaks Television's "Marquee Moon," the first single from Car Seat Headrest's forthcoming LP, Teens of Denial (due this spring), has all the earmarks of a declaration of purpose. The glorious gauntlet throwdown continues through seven minutes of relentless invention, allusion, and digression. Also relentless: (1) the bass line, chugging up and down the ringing guitar chords like a Lode Runner, (2) the verbal associations and dissociations of Will Toledo's lyrics, which are wry and knowing about depression without sacrificing the headlong thralldom of its damned romance, and (3) the arrangement. The song just has that snowball down a mountain feeling—here's the scream breakdown, here come the horns, whoops there goes another rubber tree plant—that lets you know the band is willing to risk your patience because what they have to say is only worth saying like this. By the end, when the snowball has rolled into this massive boulder, you're ready to follow them anywhere. It's thrilling.