Car Seat Headrest are back with their first new album in five years: The Scholars, a self-described rock opera, is out May 2 via Matador. In addition to tour dates, Will Toledo and his bandmates have also unveiled an 11-minute, multi-part song titled “Gethsemane” and its accompanying music video, directed by Andrew Wonder. Watch the clip for the sprawling new song below.
Set at the fictional college campus Parnassus University, The Scholars focuses on a different student or staff member on each song to tell tales of life, death, and rebirth. “Gethsemane” follows Rosa, a medical school student who revives a deceased patient by absorbing their pain, a power she’s been suppressing since childhood. “Each night, instead of dreams, she encounters the raw pain and stories of the souls she touches throughout the day,” explained Toledo. “Reality blurs, and she finds herself taken deep into secret facilities buried beneath the medical school, where ancient beings that covertly reign over the college bring forth their dark plans.”
Car Seat Headrest will bring their follow-up to 2020’s Making a Door Less Open on the road when they tour the United States this year. The band has spaced out the nine shows with relatively long gaps between each one, beginning on May 16, in Salt Lake City, and ending on November 1, in Oakland—in part due to Toledo’s health following a severe reaction to COVID-19 years ago. Find Car Seat Headrest’s full list of tour dates below.
Read about Car Seat Headrest’s Teens of Denial in “The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s.”
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The Scholars:
01 CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)02 Devereaux03 Lady Gay Approximately04 The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)05 Equals06 Gethsemane07 Reality08 Planet Desperation09 True/False Lover
Car Seat Headrest:
05-16 Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Block Party06-07 Queens, NY – Governors Ball Music Festival 202506-28 Washington, D.C. – The Anthem07-12 Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom07-26 Chicago, IL – Salt Shed (Fairgrounds)08-08 Los Angeles, CA – The Greek09-12 Philadelphia, PA – Highmark Skyline at the Mann09-27 Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall11-01 Oakland, CA – The Fox
