By Ian Macartney
4/5
It is an interesting decision for Car Seat Headrest, one of the leading lights in internet-borne lo-fi music, to decide to re-record their 2011 album, Twin Fantasy. In these times of high-speed critical opinion some would consider the original to be a contemporary classic, a masterpiece of the loose ‘lo-fi’ canon. The streamlining and complexity of this version will inevitably displease some of those fans, but the raw energy does not diminish. Now that the outfit is a proper band, the collaboration leads to some astonishing rewards. The motions and shifts within punk-operetta ‘Beach Life-in-Death’ highlights this: every instrument gets its own moment to shine within the thirteen minutes, as the band twists along to the heart-wrenching queer angst at the centre of the lyrics. ‘Nervous Young Inhumans’, too, bears the mark of melancholy, although through the guise of jubilant garage pop, ending with a gloriously literate monologue from frontman Will Toledo. Although long and exhaustive, Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) remains a universal cry against adolescence and melancholic youth, a band relishing its legacy to craft exquisite music.
