Car Seat Headrest are the Bandcamp success story personified. Years spent making lo-fi music on the music service, it’s literally possible to hear the band progress and develop throughout the early recordings. Hearing projects like How to Leave Town, work audibly leaps and bounds ahead of the numbered EPs they began with is like witnessing a documentary through music. Since acquiring a full contract on Matador Records, the group have received critical acclaim for their records Teens of Denial and reworking of early release, Twin Fantasy. Now, as the group prepare to release their third album, Making a Door Less Open, they’ve seen fit to release the first teaser track ‘Can’t Cool Me Down’.

The new track bears everything that makes a Car Seat Headrest song great

The final result is a delight. A notable deviation from the group’s prior work, this time around Car Seat Headrest have delved into the realm of synth pop. While the group have experimented with synths and electronica before, they’ve never delved quite to this extent. Especially on their more recent studio releases. Despite its differences in composition, the new track bears everything that makes a Car Seat Headrest song great. The hook is catchy and Will Toledo’s vocals sound great. This time he’s been mixed fairly low compared to the surrounding instrumentation, which serves to make the more vocally strained sections of the chorus seem more impactful when swimming among the subdued drum machine. Meanwhile the rest of the band deliver a tight performance, most notably on the bassline, which is easily one of the grooviest Car Seat Headrest have laid down to date. The opening synth line more than substitutes for a reverbed guitar and provides a decent rhythm that keeps you humming the track, long after it finishes.

The track is a little more reserved than most of the group’s better known work

The track is a little more reserved than most of the group’s better known work but this may signal a totally new direction ahead of the new album. One which could be the kind of refreshing change from a band known for their innovation in a famously stale indie rock scene. One thing the track never really does is build how one would expect it to. The track feels as though it’s ready to burst at any moment, but other than a gradual increase in layered synths towards the back end, it never quite explodes as you’d hope. However, this fits the vibe quite nicely. ‘Can’t Cool Me Down’ never outstays its welcome and feels as though in the context of an album it’ll groove quite nicely, even if it does lack the kick of some of the group’s most well-known work.

Ultimately, ‘Can’t Cool Me Down’ is a sign of a bright future for Car Seat Headrest which may see them adopting the synth/dance approach of the Voidz or may be a red herring ahead of another layer of experimental lo-fi indie. Either way, Will Toledo and co have more than proven themselves capable of delivering one of the year’s best releases and ‘Can’t Cool Me Down’ is certainly indicative of that.

‘Can’t Cool Me Down’ is available now via Matador records. Making A Door Less Open releases May 1.

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