Car Seat Headrest’s Unique Album Announcement: I Survived The Car Seat Headrest WebQuest
Tuesday, February 18th
A cryptic post goes live on the Car Seat Headrest Instagram. Dated 2/18/2005, it’s a graphic of an atom and the Sigma symbol, labeled “First period/Science” and “Second period/Mathematics”, respectively. “Hi Class! In the last few weeks before we return to school, I’ve prepared something fun for you: a webquest! Between now and the end of the month, you’ll get three sets of riddles, designed to turn your ‘thinking brains’ on. Each one will lead you on a different search: some inside your own mind, some through the archives of the internet, and some through the real world!” I didn’t really know what to make of this, much less what to do with this information. It seems my dire mistake as a journalist is not subscribing to the band’s Patreon to get access to the Discord server, where it seems all the action happens.
I won’t be spoiling the answers to the riddles, in case the site is still up by the time this comes out.
Sunday, February 23rd
The second installment goes live. Next up is Art. This one I’m comfortable spoiling; all you have to do is fill in the canvas however you’d like. Religious Studies wasn’t solved for about five hours after the post went live. The prompt was a head-scratcher to be sure, with one elusive hint given early on: ‘Wisconsin’. All signs pointed to The National Shrine Of Our Lady Of Champion in Brown County, WI. After the ordeal of solving them, the content had to deliver. There’s a punchy synth buildup, then the chorus- by jove, it’s Stop Lying To Me. Scrapped from Making A Door Less Open (2020), Stop Lying To Me was featured in the 2018 TIDAL documentary “I Haven’t Done Sh*t This Year”, and quickly became a fandom fascination. If you’ve been keeping up with the Discord (which again I have not, and that is my own moral failing for which I apologize), you’ll know the song has gone through many iterations ahead of the upcoming album. The repeating lyrics in the second half of the original song, “You can love again / If you try again”, make up what appears to be the chorus of this new single. I’ve been listening to the original “Stop Lying To Me” for years, so this is a big day for me.
Andrew Katz for the Car Seat Headrest WebQuest
Friday, February 28th
The final pieces to the puzzle, Study Hall and Classics, go live around 9AM. (Study Hall was a harrowing waiting game I don’t wish to relive, but there are some self-explanatory images above). Not long after, the WebQuest was declared over, and the album was announced. With album artwork by Cate Wurtz, longtime friend and collaborator of frontman Will Toledo and the band (Wurtz also did the Making A Door Less Open album art), The Scholars will be out in 2025, but has an unknown release date, and the lead single is slated to premier on BBC6 music at 4:15 PM GMT on Tuesday, March 4th.
