Car Seat Headrest have announced their new album The Scholars, set for release on May 2.

Their first studio LP in five years is described as a "bold new rock opera", and is set at the fictional campus of Paranassus University.

The record's lead single 'Gethsemane', which was shared today, is one of nine tracks "populated with students and staff whose travails illuminate a loose narrative of life."

Here's what the band had to say about the epic 11-minute song:

“Rosa studies at the medical school of Parnassus University. After an experience bringing a medically deceased patient back to life, she begins to regain powers suppressed since childhood, of healing others by absorbing their pain. Each night, instead of dreams, she encounters the raw pain and stories of the souls she touches throughout the day. 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 formed in Leesburg, Virginia as Will Toledo's solo project, with the frontman releasing 12 projects under the alias on Bandcamp between 2010 and 2014. Their 2011 LP Twin Fantasy became an indie hit, and was subsequently re-recorded in 2018 as Twin Fantasy (Mirror to Mirror).

C.S.H. signed to Matador Records in 2015 and began touring as a full band the following year. Their most recent album was the experimental Making A Door Less Open, released in 2020.

"What we've been doing more of in recent years is just taking the pulses of each other," Toledo says. "We’ve really been leaning into that sort of cocoon that started off with the pandemic years and just turned into this special space that we were creating all on our own.

“I was coming out of it as a solo project and it always just felt like it was in pieces. There's the album we're working on, and then there's a live show that we're doing, and then there's everything in between. And it didn't really feel to me like things got in sync in an inner feeling way until this record, with that internal communal energy. And it's become that band feeling for me in a much more realised way. That's been a big journey.”

The lyrics and story arc of The Scholars are said to be inspired by the likes of Shakespeare and Mozart's operas, as well as classic rock song cycles like The Who's Tommy and Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.

The album arrives in three vinyl editions: Classic 2x LP vinyl with gatefold packaging and a 28-page booklet featuring illustrations and lyrics, Deluxe with added bonus CD featuring 19 unheard demos, jams and outtakes, and Super Deluxe with added 2x limited edition colored vinyl discs, each copy numbered with stamped gold foil. It is available for pre-order now.