Even if you're just a casual fan in the online Car Seat Headrest community, you might have run into people posting about a surprise CD that came in the mail. Titled Teen of Denial (Joe's Story), it was designed almost exactly like the cult classic 2016 record Teens of Denial, the band's first album released on Matador.

Well, that record's not a fake; today, Car Seat Headrest have digitally released Teen of Denial: Joe's Story, a reworking of the original album with new music, exactly ten years after its predecessor. A CD version via Matador will be available for sale beginning October 16.

On the first iteration of Teens of Denial, front man and lyricist Will Toledo often used the name "Joe" as a semi-pseudonym, not really using it to craft a conceptual narrative but rather to talk about his experiences and feelings leaving college from a distance. (ex. "(Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn't a Problem)", "Joe Goes To School") Revisiting the album, he began to notice a new life emerging from this off-handed Daniel Jonhston reference. The rework now presents the album behind "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales" as a true concept album.

Returning to the studio with original producer Steve Fisk, the band have reworked some musical arrangements, tweaked lyrics, changed titles, and record completely new songs in the "Denial" style, with "Optimistic Son" and "Joe Drives Again" offering a bit more adult retrospection and wisdom to a story of youthful rebellion and angst.

"Not What I Needed," the anti-power pop anthem that (for legal reasons, I will say) attempted to interpolate The Cars' "Just What I Needed," has been taken out of the anniversary album's tracklist, as well as "Unforgiving Girl (She's Not)."

On the anniversary of Teens of Denial and release of Teen of Denial: Joe's Story, Will Toledo provided the following statement via press release:

Sometime last year, it was suggested to me that we do something for the ten-year anniversary of ‘Teens of Denial,’ so I started looking back on the album to see what we might do. In spite of some of its songs being a regular part of my life for the past decade, it wasn’t a record I’d thought much about as a whole since it came out. Most of the songs I’d come up with over a two-year period at the end of my college days, when I was struggling a lot with cynicism and misplaced aggression. But by the time the songs were done, I was living in Washington, Car Seat Headrest was a full band with a record label, and in spite of the turmoil of the writing process, the final album was pretty enjoyable for everyone to work on.

This time, looking back at the songs, I started to feel like there was a story being told through the album, though I’d never imagined it as being a narrative work. On ‘Hi, How Are You?’ Daniel Johnston had used the name “Joe” in the titles of a few tracks –“No More Pushing Joe Around,” “Keep Punching Joe” – as a sort of joke, a stand-in for himself. I borrowed the idea, and the name, for titling songs on ‘Denial.’ This time, I started thinking - who is Joe? And how do the songs, in the way they’re sequenced on the album, reflect what he’s going through? As I started asking this question, a story emerged with startling wholeness and clarity, like finding the foundations of an ancient city while digging in my backyard. As I kept digging, certain songs from the original album fell by the wayside, as they seemed misplaced in this new context; others asked for new lyrics, to fully give birth to the story contained in the music. 

The resulting work feels more like the album ‘Teens of Denial’ was meant to be. When you’re writing from a dark space, it’s hard to have perspective on where you’re at. This time, I could pull from memories of that darkness, and use the distance and additional perspective of ten years of life to shed a fuller light on the experience. Joe is a character going through some of what I experienced, and some of his own problems. Telling his story, and not just my own impressions of life at the end of the teen years, brought a new level of compassion and wholeness to the album. It gave us the opportunity to write new material in “Denial style”, embracing a snappy and simple(ish) rock aesthetic, and in an additional blessing, we were able to team up once with Steve Fisk, a joy and inspiration to get back into the studio with after ten years. We mixed the material at his house in Tacoma, and were constantly amazed at the lack of divide between past and present, as we’d punch in vocal overdubs ten years later into the same gear, hearing my voice now running alongside a 2015 Will. For someone coming across this album or this band for the first time, this is how they’d hear the record, not as a relic of the past but as a new piece. It was immensely rewarding to experience that on our side. 

For anyone familiar with ‘Teens,’ comparisons with the original will be inevitable, but I do hope that as much as possible, people can come to this album on its own terms, approaching it as a teen, hearing the music and story for the first time. I believe music is an ongoing story, and albums don’t always do justice to its dynamic, ongoing nature. What gives it life is the new ears that hear it, and the new hearts that engage with it. I’m so grateful that this is a work that people have kept coming to, and I hope that this presentation does them honor with a fresh offering to the conversation. We’ve known that “it doesn’t have to be like this”; now we can wonder - “what it if were like this?”

Teen of Denial: Joe's Story is out everywhere now digitally via Matador. The physical CD version will be out October 16. Stream here. Official tracklist:

1. Fill in the Blank
2. Vincent
3. Destroyed by Hippie Powers
4. (Joe Gets Kicked Out of School For Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem)
5. Optimistic Son
6. Drunk Drivers / Killer Whales
7. 1937 State Park
8. Joe Drives Again
9. Cosmic Hero
10.  The Ravenous House
11.  Connect the Dots (Song of Secretariat) 
12.  Joe Goes to School