Through a glass, darkly

Reflections on Car Seat Headrest's Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)

Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) was released in February 2018, but it hit me by Winter 2018-2019 with the weight of a sack of bricks. I had come back from sunny Austin, TX, to gloomy Trondheim, and - through some mishaps in my own personal life - was quite emotionally unwell. Hence, Twin Fantasy spoke to me in a row of meaningful ways. I feel compelled to write about this album as I feel compelled to write about myself, that is to say, I want to see through the tracks as one who stares at a mirror. This, I realize, would be an extremely boorish endeavor, and would not make up for a good review. For the readers’ sake, I shall write first about the album as it appeals to me, and then, as an afterthought, more precisely about how it relates to me.

The 2018’s Twin Fantasy is a re-recording of 2011’s Twin Fantasy, a lo-fi album entirely produced by one single man and released for free in Bandcamp. This man is Will Toledo, and Twin Fantasy was his 6th self-produced record to be released online. It can still be found there, though now it has been rechristened Twin Fantasy (Mirror to Mirror) Will Toledo went on to record two more albums by himself before forming a “real” band and getting a deal with Matador. Once they got a label, Car Seat Headrest significantly decided not to re-release old albums in the form and shape of their lo-fi counterparts. Thus, while their 1st Matador album (“Teens of Style”) consists of retakes of old tracks, its tracklist order is original. Their 2nd Matador album (“Teens of Denial”) is completely new. It came somewhat as a surprise, then, when Will decided to re-record Twin Fantasy in its entirety. (In fact, in an interview with Anthony Fantano, Will specifically stated that he has no intention of ever doing something of the sort again.)

Did Twin Fantasy warrant a re-recording and a name change? Though I have just said that this was an unexpected development, reality is that fans had been claiming for a revisit to Twin Fantasy in particular since Car Seat Headrest signed with Matador. Twin Fantasy was by far the most successful of the eight Bandcamp-era albums of Car Seat Headrest, to the point that even I knew of its existence around the period it was released. Nevertheless, that album, Twin Fantasy (Mirror to Mirror), can be a rough experience. In the next paragraphs, I will give my thoughts regarding Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) with barely any mention whatsoever to its progenitor. The reason is that, whereas I must have listened to the 2011 album twice in my life¹, I probably listened to the 2018 album every second day during Winter 2018-2019. I do not feel qualified to talk about Mirror to Mirror. With that out of the way, here is my interpretation of Twin Fantasy (Face to Face). (I will also get rid of the parenthetical, so know that I am referring to the latter album.)

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Twin Fantasy is an album about a break-up. Additionally, it is a 2018 re-recording of a 2011 album, a fact of which it is fully self-aware. Hence, there is both a narrative and a meta-narrative told throughout its tracks:

1. The narrative of a teenage romantic relationship gone wrong;

2. The meta-narrative of a young adult revisiting this failed relationship and his response to it at the time.

This is an interesting project because, though these two textual layers are intermingled, they have different resolutions. These are presented at different moments. The dynamic tension between narrative and meta-narrative make up for an interesting conflict that is perhaps revealing of the nature of grief and memory.

The shape of Twin Fantasy is that of an ellipsis with two focal points. For our convenience, the first point is the second song, “Beach Life-in-Death”, whereas the second point is the second-to-last song, “Famous Prophets (Stars)”. Both are messy, bloated compositions, each one holding its own version of a microcosmos of the album. Both are also terribly frank, informing the listener of what is going on inside Will Toledo’s soul with little to no subtext whatsoever. However, whereas “Beach Life-in-Death” is inwards-facing grief, “Famous Prophets (Stars)” is hurting, accusatory. These are, perhaps, two sides of grief. However, grief is a multi-layered thing, and to talk about Will Toledo’s grief one might better analyse the album as a single narrative told sequentially, song-after-song.

Twin Fantasy begins innocuously enough with “My Boy”, a sweet, catchy love song. Its sound is crispy and clear, like a sea breeze in a Summer morning. Its lyrics are simple:

My boy, we don't see each other much
My boy, we don't see each other much

It'll take some time
But somewhere down the line
We won't be alone

There is, of course, the shadow of a promise in the song: we won’t be alone. This longing for companionship is at the core of Twin Fantasy’s narrative. A resolution to such promise comes at the tail-end of the album, as we will see.

Then there’s “Beach Life-in-Death”, a monster of a song. Whereas “My Boy” is 2:52 long, “Beach Life-in-Death” is 13:19 long, being roughly divided in three distinct parts. Sonically, the composition resembles surf-rock written by someone who remains firmly inland (and who perhaps has never seen a beach). The first part of the song is allegro, followed by adagio, followed by allegro again. There is very little variation in the chords and melody throughout this track, meaning that it’s up to Will Toledo’s lyrics to carry the burden of injecting meaning into these 13 minutes and 19 seconds.

Last night I drove to Harper's Ferry and I thought about you
There were signs on the road that warned me of stop signs
The speed limit kept decreasing by ten
As we entered a town about halfway there

The first part of the song tries to tell a story, but the narrative quickly breaks apart in flashbacks, reflections and pleas. Clearly, the teller is grieving the loss of someone he held dear. In between such musings, he recalls past moments of their relationship, and wonders what might give meaning to his life now that he’s alone.

I spent a week in Ocean City
And came back to find you were gone
I spent a week in Illinois
And came back to find you were still gone

In general, these thoughts are witty and, might I add, quite funny at times. There are references to past tracks that Will Toledo wrote about his lover (“Beach Death”, “Beach Funeral”, and… “Beach Fagz”, though this last one might not have been about him at all). There are references to coming out as gay via Skype calls. This sort of hyper-personal information injects the sass that the song definitely requires, an antidote to cynicism in the album’s very first verses. The instrumental is at a crescendo at this point, Will’s voice is getting louder and more desperate, building in to the most hyper-personal of hyper-personal musings in the song: Will Toledo’s own views about the nature of depression itself.

I am almost completely soulless
I am incapable of being human
I am incapable of being inhuman
I am living uncontrollably

(…)

It's not enough to love the unreal
I am inseparable from the impossible
I want gravity to stop for me
My soul yearns for a fugitive from the laws of nature
I want a cut scene

I shall let these verses speak by themselves. As someone who has dealt with depression for most of my life, however, I must add that I find these thoughts particularly thoughtful. The feeling of nastiness, entrapment, delusion that comes with depression is well defined in these lines - which, meaningfully, do not rhyme, do not fit the tempo, are simply delivered as matter of fact.

The second part of “Beach Life-in-Death” is slower and sweeter, looking back at the relationship that has been lost. These are impressionistic strokes depicting moments spent together. Of note, personally, I feel captivated by these lines about watching the TV-drama Twin Peaks. It is meaningful that a series known for its surrealism is so clearly addressed in a narrative that dwells in surrealistic imagery:

And it was my favorite scene
I couldn’t tell you what it means
But it meant something to me

In the third part of the track, the tempo picks up again. For the first time in this album, the lyrics gain religious undertones. This might catch the listener somewhat off guard. It is a sensible transition, though. As the drums become more frantic, the guitars now louder than ever, Will delivers this mantra:

Oh please let me join your cult
I'll paint my face in your colors
You had a real nice face
I had an early death

The ocean washed over your grave
The ocean washed open your grave
The ocean washed over your grave
The ocean washed open your grave
The ocean washed over your grave
The ocean washed open your grave

This is finally the mission statement of “Beach Life-in-Death”, and perhaps of Twin Fantasy’s narrative as a whole: memory is like a body buried in a shallow grave by the ocean, washed over and open again following the whims of the tides. One has little control over one’s own sadness. On a sunny day, a fleeting thought might take me back to a memory of someone I have lost. I grieve. Grief is a chronic disease that needs only to strike once before it can strike again for the rest of one’s lifetime.

I realize I have spoken a lot about “Beach Life-in-Death”, but fear not, dear reader, because I will not spend so much ink (or pixels?) for the following few tracks. This does not mean, however, that I think less of them.

The third track, “Stop Smoking (We Love You)”, is a lovely song-naïf about cigarettes and pulmonary diseases. Both this and “My Boy” sound like nursery rhymes one might write to entertain a loved person. Coming after “Beach Life-in-Death”, there is a little bit of tonal whiplash. In a way, this speaks of the unevenness of the narrative of the album: “Beach Life-in-Death” is the whole story, encapsulated (almost) entirely, beginning to end. What follows, then, are bits and pieces that flesh out what we have been told of, and will be told of again in the second focal point.

Let us imagine, then, that “Stop Smoking (We Love You)” is at the very beginning of this narrative. Thus, it makes sense that the fourth track be “Sober to Death”. As a piece of pop music, “Sober to Death” might simply be the best entry of the record for someone who’s not invested in the story and wishes merely for a good song. Its sound is that of an indie folk track; its introductory riff is bright and pristine like the bells over a church tower.

It is, simply put, a teenage love song.

Lovely lovely
In your jeans, frenzy
Another movie that I didn't watch with you
Another movie and we're gonna have to move

If it hasn’t become clear up to this point: Will Toledo and his lover live in separate cities. This could be inferred from “My Boy”, but it is markedly clear in “Sober to Death”. The emotional longing is also a physical longing, typical of long-distance relationships in the digital era - and specially so among teens. Another teenage hallmark of the song is the refrain: good stories are bad lives. Here, one excuses oneself’s unhappiness by claiming that their misery is at least good writing material. Finally, then, the track ends with a mantra borrowed from “My Boy”.

Don't worry, you and me won't be alone no more
Don't worry, you and me won't be alone no more

Fear of loneliness is an underlying motif in Twin Fantasy. It both presages the inevitable break-up and all the pain that it will cause as, somewhat twistedly, the final denouement of the whole album in the final track.

Up to this moment I have pointedly refused to discuss in-depth the sound of Twin Fantasy. With no disrespect to Will Toledo, however: Twin Fantasy is a product from 2011, even as it is re-recorded in 2018. Moreover, it is the music of someone who was deeply invested in early 2000’s rock culture, from They Might Be Giants to New Pornographers. Hence, if “Sober to Death” sounds like an indie folk song, the three next tracks sound like indie rock songs². These are “Nervous Young Inhumans”, “Bodys” and “Cute Thing”. That is not to say that they are bad - actually, I think the album would be at a great loss without either of them. I like to think of these three as reflecting the euphoria of a fully realized relationship. “Nervous Young Inhumans”, in particular, pins down that precise moment when you figure out that you found someone who is willing to put up with your bullshit. “Your bullshit” here meaning “your depression”, of course.

You never lifted your voice
You never raised your hand
I only showed you my inhuman
You understand

The theme of inhumanity is here an echo of that mentioned in “Beach Life-in-Death”. With depression, one is neither a human nor its opposite. One lives uncontrollably. This is a guilty feeling, particularly at the moment one is supposed to share happiness and sickness with a loved person. Sadly enough, though one should not abandon a depressed person, depression is a burden better suffered alone³. Knowing this, Will throws another of his promises:

You’ll get what you want and you’ll get what you deserve

At this point of the album, this is a lovingly offer. At a later point, it might sound more as a threat. But fear not: the outro of this song is a spoken-word speech by Will Toledo on the nature of evil itself. If Twin Fantasy as a whole is a bare naked body, hyper-personal, threading the thin line between laudable and cringe, I must say that this outro goes all the way to cringe. I appreciate it though. I am also aware that this outro is different from that of 2011’s Mirror to Mirror, as it should be, for Will Toledo is describing events that happened that same year. This is a play on the nature of the album by itself - then (2011) as a sentimental outburst from a person who had just been broken, now (2018) as the sober(er) reflections of an adult who’s looking back at his diary’s scribbles⁴.

What follows is “Bodys”. I’ll be quite honest here: I do not really like “Bodys” and I do not relate to its message. The message being that physical well-being, via dancing and sexual affection, alleviates the mental strain through which the narrator goes through. As you might know, the years have turned me into a sex-negative grumpy old person, and thus this philosophy does not resonate with me⁵. Even if it did, however, it’s just cliché at this point. I might be alone at this one, though. I am aware of at least one successful YouTuber who made a video about this specific song. Take of that what you will. Nonetheless, this is an important track for the narrative of the album, and I am particularly endeared to its babbling, misspelled and misspoken prose.

Those are you got some nice shoulders
I'd like to put my hands around them

An interesting phenomenon starts happening when Will Toledo loosens up: he also becomes quite, quite funny, in a lovingly dorky way. This can be perceived in the sprouting jokes and self-references in “Bodys” (which I will not quote here, as a joke without its context can only look bad on the joker). But dorkiness, silliness and sensual dis-inhibition finally come to a boil in “Cute Thing”, which is irresistibly upbeat. It also rocks really hard, somewhat unexpectedly for Car Seat Headrest. This song is one of the biggest beneficiaries from the formation of a fully-fledged band in the Matador-era, by the way. The drums are tight, and this is perhaps the only track of the album that heavily benefits from having a virtuoso guitar player. Coming on top of all this explosive instrumental, Will’s wittiness is sometimes frankly par to 80’s Morrissey.

He died in an explosion
Of mixed media and poorly written reviews
And some stammering drunk who tried to tell him how good his shit was
"That's- that's, ah- that's- that's some good- good shit, man"

I accidentally spoke his first name aloud
Trying to make it fit in with the lyrics of "Ana Ng"
Worked like a charm

We're getting old
When will we walk in each other's majestic presence?
Listen, hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say if I was John Linnell
Or trying to be John Linnell

These last lines interpolate the lyrics to “Ana Ng” by They Might Be Giants. “Ana Ng”, the song about digging a hole through the Earth to meet one’s antipode and finally being able to walk “in the glow of each other’s majestic presence”. It is really remarkable that, even at this moment of extreme dorkiness, the solitude of someone aching to find partnership on the other side of the world is a central subject of the song. And then, this hellish display of libido and rock’n’roll effusiveness peters out with:

I am love
I am love
I would sleep naked
Next to you naked
I am love
I am love
Like some excommunicated priest
Casting demons
Asked one what its name was

As if anyone wondered what demon took possession of the narrator’s voice, this is it: his name is love, he is love. It is a profanity that religion comes back to play a role in this carnival of a song. And yet, it is utterly fitting. Whatever exorcism might have been performed, it certainly worked, because thus ends the triad of indie rock anthems at the heart of Twin Fantasy.

What follows from now on is the rupture, the whiplash. Its first sign is “High to Death”, a song that is so pained as to be painful. A spiral-shaped guitar riff phases from the right to the left side of the stereo, then back, and the resulting vertigo is that of one who’s, well, high to death. This track literally starts with the narrator falling and being unable to get up by himself, wishing he’d be sober. The walls spin around. Ultimately, one is left to ponder one’s own mortality.

And I said hell is the sun
Burning forever at the centre of things
A ball on fire at the centre of things

This is the final bad trip, at the end of which we declare that the day itself is our enemy, that the sun is our enemy. This is relatable on a metaphorical level, for those who have struggled with depression, but it is also relatable on a material level for those who have had real drug-induced bad trips. The sun here can represent reality, or acceptance of an ill-fated romance, but it can also be just the sun itself.

The outro to this song is a spoken-word recording of Hojin Stella Jung, a graphic artist responsible for some of the release material of Car Seat Headrest. She is talking about a certain collection of paintings called “The Lady”. The inclusion of this section here is the opposite of subtext - it is an outwards declamation of the meta-narrative of 2018’s Twin Fantasy. Because, let’s not forget, this is a fully grown adult re-recording a series of songs made when he was 18 years old about a (then) recent, messy break-up. Says the artist:

Hello, my name is Hojin Stella Jung, I'm a senior at McQueen High School, my portfolio is a collection of paintings - that was created during last summer, and the first half of my senior year, and it's called "The Lady", and I didn't feel very well when I painted the first, and I didn't feel very well when I painted the last. It was intense, it was an intense process, and it was how I was trying to - very hard, personify that intensity, but it's hard to talk about her now, because I think she wasn't me, at least that's how I feel and I'm trying to figure out what to do now… But she represents fervor in woman, she is powerful, yet fragile, she dares but also averts her gaze, and I love her, at least - I did, and - but now I feel lost, and I'm unsure of what to think and feel most of the time. But I did believe in her, "The Lady", and maybe, there is a different form now that the intensity takes.

Finally then comes “Famous Prophets (Stars)”, another absolute monster of a song. This is the second elliptical focus I had referred to previously. This is the break-up song that assumes apocalyptic undertones, ending up in a frenzy. Driven by a heavy, ominous bassline, the 2018 version incorporates guitar blasts, solos, piano, and even a brass section at the tail-end of the song. Over this, Will Toledo mourns and mourns and mourns.

These teenage hands will never touch yours again
But I remember you
You had a body
You had hands and arms and legs and et cetera

And he keeps mourning.

Did I fail? Did I fall?
Did I waste my time, waste my time on a broken heart?
Or is this the start of the great silence?
Is this the start of every day?

Then the mantra comes back:

The ocean washed over your grave
The ocean washed open your grave
The ocean washed over your grave
The ocean washed open your grave

It is now fitting that one addresses the name of the album, or rather, its parenthetical: why is the 2011 version “Mirror to Mirror” and the 2018 version “Face to Face”? Well, clearly, the answer is in Corinthians. “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known”. The 2018’s Twin Fantasy is the realization of a certain dream of objectivity: the desire to go back to that story, which had been buried, and bring forth its re-evaluation. Thus it is important to consider the words of Hojin Stella Jung when speaking about “The Woman”. And nowhere in this album is this re-evaluation fiercer than in “Famous Prophets (Stars)”. The 2011 version, “Famous Prophets (Minds)”, is frankly nasty and petty, going so far as name-dropping the ex-lover and laying down biblical damnation both on him and on Will himself. In “Famous Prophets (Stars)”, the biblicisms are a tool to question the meta-narrative.

So descend into cliché
If the music has forsaken you
Roll the stone over the grave
I never liked that one anyways
Or stare into the face
Of whatever it is that's facing you
And if the levee breaks
You'll find out what it is that's replacing you

This is the conclusion of the meta-narrative. Staring at something, face to face, means ultimately growing out of it (“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me”).

And when the mirror breaks
I wouldn't miss it for the world

And thus, with this verse and the destruction of the meta-narrative, one’s left with the “true” narrative, the break-up. This is a terse semi-resolution. And here, something beautiful happens. In its 2011 incarnation, “Famous Prophets” plays out with a continuation of the song’s bassline, shredding guitars blasts, etc. In the 2018’s re-incarnation, however, the sound shifts to a somber piano-driven outro. A recording of an actress reading out the Corinthians is overlayed onto the track. Her lines are cut and remixed so that the first thing the listener hears is “I gain nothing — I have love — I gain nothing — I have love”. Thus begins the resolution of the narrative. As the actress goes on reading, the band builds up an absolute tower of sound, now with the addition of piano and brass. Will Toledo wails over this monument as loud as possible, like a weeping widow. Hence, though there is a clear conclusion to all this suffering, it is an unsatisfying one: physical contact is exorcised from this relationship, though love justifies it and imbues it with meaning, but still, there is no more physical contact! Coming out from the roller-coaster of “Cute Thing”, a song about physical affection, this is an utterly painful compromise.

And thus one arrives at “Twin Fantasy (These Boys)”, the album’s last song. This track quite literally sounds like a church hymn. A very bright organ produces a humming drone, as Will relates the story of two boys in search of adventures.

They just want to be one
Walk off into the sun
They’re not kissing
And they’re not fucking
They’re just having fun

(…)

They were connected
At the back of the head
They had a conduit
Their minds were the same

This is the fantasy of Twin Fantasy: these boys are not alone any longer. Everything might be lost for their romance, but they share an unbreakable bond through their common experiences. The sun appears in this song again as a motif, echoing “High to Death”, though now this is not an undesirable occurrence. If the sun “means” reality, grief has given way to acceptance. If the sun means the literal sun, the narrator has left his home after a long period of depression and can finally appear to the world once again. To conclude, Will presents another spoken-word exit:

This is the end of the song, and it is just a song. This is a version of me and you that can exist outside of everything else, and if it is just a fantasy, then anything can happen from here. The contract is up. The names have been changed. So pour one out, whoever you are. These are only lyrics now.

So ends Twin Fantasy (Face to Face).

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It is not a secret to anyone that in 2011, when Will Toledo was recording his songs alone in his room and releasing them via Bandcamp, I was also recording my songs alone in my room and releasing them online. In my case, I first released these tracks via Tramavirtual, then via MySpace, then SoundCloud and Bandcamp. I had amassed a good number of uploads in Tramavirtual when the website suddenly closed down, erasing all of my tracks from the internet. I hadn’t backed them up, and thus I had to exercise some sort of Buddhist ritual of detachment and ego death. It was a painful process at the time, but I often have thought about how I would react being confronted with my thoughts and musings written in verse as one very young proto-incel. Similarly, the few times I have thought about re-recording some of those lost tracks, I convinced myself that what is buried should remain buried. There are feelings that I cannot revisit, and which I do not wish to encounter again.

Not surprisingly, thus, I come to Will Toledo first as a peer, and then as someone utterly humbled by his genius. Let me not measure my words: 2011’s Twin Fantasy (Mirror to Mirror) is an incredible monument to teenage ingenuity in the early era of internet lo-fi production and self-publishing. Meanwhile, 2018’s Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) is philosophical gospel. It is an exercise in meditation on art and memory that could not have existed in any other period in history, and that quite probably cannot be ever replicated.

This is because Twin Fantasy is, and not in a bad way, dated. And now, I must be careful. I will not enter in Kiwi Farms territory here, but it is important to note how terminally online Will Toledo and Car Seat Headrest were for a certain period of time. This band was a meme in 4chan and Reddit for a few years, years in which Car Seat Headrest was arguably not even a “real band”. Both Will and Twin Fantasy’s muse had a significative Twitter presence. This muse, who is an amab furry artist and the designer behind Twin Fantasy’s own iconic album cover, has since transitioned. She and Will Toledo appear to be in good terms. Will has, at least midway through the covid-19 pandemic, adopted a furry mask for himself.

Does this matter? Does it matter that Twin Fantasy is a queer album? Does it matter that both involved parties in its narrative have dabbled in furry culture to greater or lesser extents? Does it matter that Will Toledo has released a song referencing Neon Genesis Evangelion and written a Tumblr post about how he dislikes Bojack Horseman? Does it matter that he released his albums on Bandcamp? None of it is of any relevance, certainly, and the mere fact that I am bringing this up is symptomatic of an era that worships “relatability” above depth and substance. However, I would like to argue that, for an album so hyper-personal like Twin Fantasy, these small tidbits about Will Toledo’s persona are constructive. Because Twin Fantasy is like Karl Ove Knausgård’s Min Kamp. It is a monstruous, inhuman⁶ exercise of self-indulgence that succeeds by dragging its audience in, pulling us towards its belly, inviting reflection.

“Reflection” is the working word with which I want to finish this review. The KJV Bible translates 1 Corinthians 13:12 as “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face”. The NIV Bible is a bit more direct: “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face”. According to Wikipedia,

The Greek word: ἐσόπτρου esoptrou (genitive; nominative: ἔσοπτρον esoptron), here translated "glass", is ambiguous, possibly referring to a mirror or a lens. Influenced by Strong's Concordance, many modern translations conclude that this word refers specifically to a mirror.

I certainly am not a scholar and do not have a say in this, but I would add that I have always found “through a glass, darkly” more evocative. Listening to Twin Fantasy, I feel as if I am outside looking in through a glass. For as much as I have identified with this album, I do not see myself in there. I see the characters that Will Toledo built up, two puppets forever lost in a shadow play, a repeating tragedy trapped in the realms of memory.

1. I have, since starting this review, re-listened to 2011’s Twin Fantasy (Mirror to Mirror) and developed a new appreciation for the album. Though I must reiterate that its sound does not appeal to me in general, it is fascinating to listen to a track such as “Beach Life-in-Death” as its blueprint in 2011 and compare it to its fully-realized self in 2018. Evaluating 2011’s Twin Fantasy is an appraisal of the state-of-the-art of the early 10’s lo-fi scene. This approach is ultimately interesting to me and me alone, and will be excised of the present review.

2. As an afterthought, I might have been unfairly reductive with regards to Car Seat Headrest’s sound. Even in their lo-fi era, I should mention that Will Toledo’s indie rock sensibilities were always coloured by his complete control of chamber-pop or baroque-pop artifices. In this album, this is more evident in “Beach Life-in-Death”. However, for me, the best example of this quality comes in Car Seat Headrest’s 1st Matador album, and more precisely in “Something Soon”, which contains a barbershop-like choir that, in my opinion, rivals some of the Beach Boys’s own compositions.

3. See David Foster Wallace’s “The Depressed Person”. Also, is my overuse of footnotes inspired by my own shameless stanning of DFW? You’ll be the judge, dear reader.

4. It is incredibly telling that here the meta-narrative resurfaces. Listening to Mirror to Mirror’s “Nervous Young Inhumans”, it struck me that that song’s outro spoke about Frankenstein’s monster and Will’s feeling that his own portrait of his loved person is, in summary, also a monster, a construction, far removed from reality, only existing in the realm of the album. Hence, 2011’s Twin Fantasy already presaged the meta-narrative that would dominate 2018’s album. In a way, one would hope that Face to Face would attain the objectivity that Mirror to Mirror declaredly failed to achieve. Alas, this is sort of the point of the meta-narrative, though, in my own opinion, this is a mission impossible.

5. By the way, a more realized discussion on the same topic appears in the opening track from the album that came directly after Twin Fantasy, “Weightlifters”.

6. If I can indulge in one single act of creepy Kiwi Farms behaviour, these tweets by the album’s “subject matter” from around six years ago are quite meaningful. Much like Karl Ove Knausgård fell off with his family over Min Kamp, for at least some time, the muse from Twin Fantasy was not entirely happy with the existence of this album. Again, I must reiterate that now she and Will Toledo seem to be in good terms. But it is clearly impossible to transform someone in art without first robbing them of their agency, as Will would be the first to admit.