Making a Door Less Open is the 13th album by American indie rock band Car Seat Headrest. It was released on May 1, 2020, via Matador Records. The album serves as the band's fourth for the label and the second to consist of newly written material.

Quick Facts Making a Door Less Open, Studio album by Car Seat Headrest ...

Making a Door Less Open
Studio album by Car Seat Headrest
Released	May 1, 2020 (2020-05-01)
Recorded	January 2019 October 2019
Studio	Avast! (Seattle, Washington)
Genre	Indie rock electronic rock indietronica
Length	47:28
Label	Matador
Producer	Will Toledo Andrew Katz
Car Seat Headrest chronology
Commit Yourself Completely (2019) Making a Door Less Open (2020) Faces from the Masquerade (2023)
Singles from Making a Door Less Open
"Can't Cool Me Down" Released: February 26, 2020 "Martin" Released: March 23, 2020 "Hollywood" Released: April 16, 2020 "There Must Be More Than Blood" Released: April 23, 2020

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More information Aggregate scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	77/100[1]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
And It Don't Stop	[3]
Beats Per Minute	85%[4]
Consequence of Sound	B[5]
The Guardian	[6]
NME	[7]
Pitchfork	6.6/10[8]
The Observer	[9]
Our Culture Mag	[10]
Rolling Stone	[11]

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Making a Door Less Open marks a distinct stylistic divergence from the band's previous material. While Car Seat Headrest largely became known for their indie rock sound and use of "lo-fi" aesthetics,^[12] the style of the album was largely influenced by experiments with 1 Trait Danger, the electronic side-project of band members Will Toledo and Andrew Katz.^[13]

Writing for Making a Door Less Open began in January 2015,^[14] prior to the band's signing to Matador Records.^[15] Lead singer/songwriter Will Toledo began developing the songs electronically, with the ideas later being fleshed out into full songs in 2018. The first song conceived for the project would go on to become the opening track, Weightlifters.^[16] Unlike previous Car Seat Headrest albums, Making a Door Less Open would end up being produced with more emphasis on the individual tracks, due to the increased prominence of streaming and playlists in modern music consumption. This would result in three separate versions of the album's track-list across release formats: vinyl, CD, and streaming.^[17]

Toledo, in an official write-up on the album titled "Newness and Strangeness", wrote, "The songs [from Making a Door Less Open] contain elements of EDM, hip hop, futurism, doo-wop, soul, and of course rock and roll. But underneath all these things I think these may be folk songs, because they can be played and sung in many different ways, and they're about things that are important to a lot of people: anger with society, sickness, loneliness, [and] love."^[14]

In an August 2018 interview with Matt Wilkinson, Toledo confirmed that he was demoing out new material for the band, adding that, "there might be some stuff that surprises people who only know us as a rock band, but I don’t think it will come as a surprise to people who are checking out all the deep cuts".^[18] In January 2019, percussionist Andrew Katz confirmed the band was in the studio recording new music through a video uploaded on Instagram.^[19]

Following the tease of new music, the band began experimenting with new material at live shows, initially debuting the tracks "Weightlifters" and "Hollywood" at The Vera Project in December 2018.^[20][21] The band would also tease the song "Stop Lying to Me" as a part of their TIDAL documentary series, "I Haven't Done Sh*t This Year" in July 2019.^[22]

On February 3, 2020, Car Seat Headrest began sharing an abstract series of artworks created by Cate Wurtz on Twitter and Instagram, featuring mysterious captions.^[23][24] This continued throughout the month before concluding on February 26, 2020, when Making a Door Less Open was officially announced by the band, along with the release of the album's first single, "Can't Cool Me Down".^[25] The album's announcement also coincided with the introduction of "Trait", an alternative persona of Toledo's which had originally stemmed from the band's side-project, 1 Trait Danger. The character is presented wearing a gas-mask with LED eyes, and a hi-viz jacket and pants.^[26] Toledo explained his reasoning for introducing the character as the result of performance anxiety, and a wish to "remind [himself] and everyone else to have some fun with it."^[14]

"Trait" would go on to appear in the lyric video for the album's second single, "Martin", released on March 23,^[27] and the animated music video for the album's third single, "Hollywood", released on April 16.^[28]

Making a Door Less Open would officially release on May 1, 2020,^[29] the 10 year anniversary of Car Seat Headrest's first album, 1.^[30] As the album also released amid the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the band's planned North American tour was cancelled, later being rescheduled to 2022.^[31][32]

All tracks are written by Will Toledo, except "Hollywood", written by Toledo and Andrew Katz.^[37]

Credits are adapted from Bandcamp,^[37] and the album's vinyl liner notes.