Car Seat HeadrestHaving developed a cult online following over the course of 11 Bandcamp albums and a repackaged retrospective, Teens Of Denial is Will Toledo's first "proper" studio album with a band — and it's set to be one of 2016's standout releases.
It's a far more cohesive affair, though the 23-year-old's spontaneous narrative style, DIY attitude and innovative approach to structure still provide the pivot points for explorations made stronger with the group's contribution.
At nearly 12 minutes The Ballad Of Costa Concordia is the album's impressive centrepiece — horns, soaring guitar riffs and gloriously angsty harmonies accompany maudlin, frenzied, sentimental and even humorous twists. A talk-sing checklist to figuring out adulthood merges with a diss to the infamous Italian cruise ship captain, and a cunning nod to Dido's White Flag. Toledo is clever, intensely curious too; one could spend an age pouring through alter egos, metaphors and the often weird subject matter (as per the morbid yet joyful singalong single Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales).
The immediacy of 1937 State Park pegs him as a lyricist with both a distinctive grasp on imagery ("Death is playing his xylophone ribs for me") and one able to make plain lines poignant through the emotion of his vocal cadence ("I didn't want you to hear that shake in my voice, my pain is my own"). That shake however, captured with the energy of an early take as opposed to endless studio polishing, is precisely where the attraction lies.
