The first studio album fromCar Seat Headrest in five years, The Scholars.

From Shakespeare to Mozart to classical opera, Car Seat Headrests Will Toledo pulled from the classics when devising the lyrics and story arc of The Scholars, while the music draws, carefully, from classic rock story song cycles such as The Whos Tommy and David Bowies Ziggy Stardust.

One thing that can be a struggle with rock operas is that the individual songs kind of get sacrificed for the flow of the plot, Toledo notes. I didnt want to sacrifice that to make a very fluid narrative. And so this is sort of a middle ground where each song can be a character and its like each one is coming out on center stage and they have their song and dance.

While Car Seat Headrest started as Toledos solo project, the fo