Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)

The Guardian 80

(Matador)

“Give me Frank Ocean’s voice and James Brown’s stage presence,” sings Will Toledo on Cute Thing, highlighting his own shortcomings – he has a tendency to sing in a tone that suggests he’s been given pesto for dinner for the seventh day in a row and he really, really wanted sausages, and a performing persona that suggests he’d rather be digging out his eyeballs with teaspoons – as well as the fact that he’s generated a fervent following with neither of those gifts.

Toledo is an intriguing figure: his 11th album is a rerecording of his sixth, given extra oomph and proper production now that Car Seat Headrest is a muscular, exciting, rock band, rather than only him making music in his bedroom. There are some changes – Nervous Young Inhumans has a new set of lyrics – but in the main, this is about pulling the album into sharper focus.