Plenty of talented people start writing songs and recording them using lo-fi technology and struggle to move beyond that barrier.
Will Toledo is a very notable exception -- his early
Car Seat Headrest recordings were charming in their wobbly sound and tentative performances, paired with emotionally resonant lyrics, but his ideas and abilities were too big to be contained by the small scale of his homemade projects. 2020's electronic-influenced
Making a Door Less Open and the 2023 live set
Faces from the Masquerade both found
Toledo and his accompanists moving past a lo-fi mindset in search of music that would provide a stage big enough for the many things he wanted to say. 2025's
The Scholars finds
Toledo trying to go big the old-fashioned way -- putting together a great band and making a rock opera. If that sounds like a quaint 1970s notion in the post-indie era, it sure doesn't play that way. While most of
Car Seat Headrest's recordings either had him playing all the instruments or working with accompanists rather than real bandmates,
The Scholars finds him working with musicians who sound like equals, even if
Toledo is still clearly the leader, and guitarist
Ethan Ives, bassist
Seth Dalby, and drummer
Andrew Katz are the tight, versatile, and skillful answer to
Toledo's search for a truer sound. Compared to
Car Seat Headrest's early work, the clarity, punch, and confidence of
The Scholars is revelatory, almost like they've leapt from lo-fi to prog rock, though
Toledo's melodies still bear a certain resemblance to his previous work. They're also willing to stretch out to prog-like length for this music; three of the nine songs are over ten minutes long, and one even cracks the eighteen-minute mark, and they do this without sounding padded or self-indulgent.
The Scholars is not
Toledo's first concept album, but he's said this time he wanted to emphasize characters rather than a narrative through-line. It's hard to follow the story without a libretto, but the themes are consistent and eloquently expressed. Most of the characters are students or faculty at a fictional university, and the songs are full of young adults mature enough to have ideas and outlooks of their own while still struggling with the expectations of family and authority figures, looking for love and purpose as they make mistakes, struggle with the consequences, and are haunted by both the past and the future. It's heady stuff and takes far more chances than
Toledo has permitted himself before. And he and his band miraculously pull it off -- the music is outstanding, the performances engrossing, and the great individual tracks cohere into a larger statement that's honestly moving in its intelligence and compassion.
Toledo is young enough that it's premature to call
The Scholars a masterpiece, though it's unquestionably his finest work to date and one of the best albums of 2025. ~ Mark Deming
