Will Toledo has long included a palpable sense of anxiety in his indie rock project, Car Seat Headrest, and that aspect is as present as ever on the band’s 12th studio album, Making a Door Less Open. Nervousness permeates the feedback that morphs into shapeless electronic melodies and springy guitars on the opening track “Weightlifters.” With a distinct wavering in his baritone, Toledo arrives with a couplet that immediately, presciently, taps into the weirdness of our present recession-stricken situation: “Back when I had time to dream / I dreamt of ordinary things.”

Covering lyrical territory well-trodden for any listeners versed in Toledo’s considerable back catalogue, the rest of “Weightlifters” dives into the Virginia native’s preoccupations with his physical inadequacies, lamenting his inability to think his ideal body into being. This familiarly-rendered opening salvo eventually dissipates into a repetitive, siren-like denouement of whining guitars, belying the urgency and paranoia that will define the rest of the record.

A seasoned introspector, Toledo turns his anxious feelings outward across Making a Door Less Open’s multitudinous, genre-spanning track list, the very makeup of the album being a comment on the attention-deficit restlessness of the modern listener. Songs are generally punchier in length and more direct than the multi-movement rock epics that typically punctuate previous Car Seat Headrest albums, while the track arrangement itself varies depending on the listener’s chosen format (this review is based on the digital release). The album’s multiplicity of genre touchstones keeps a 47-minute listening session fresh and engaging, while pointing to the Spotify generation’s predilection for genre-specific playlists over curated albums.

While the more succinct format means that Making a Door Less Open is arguably less conceptually coherent that Toledo’s most successful efforts, it doesn’t undermine the sheer songwriting craft on display. Lead single “Can’t Cool Me Down” runs on the mysterious slink of its cool organ loop — a Radiohead/Jamiroquai hybrid with a falsetto chorus and spoken bridge. With the racing acoustic/electric and soaring indie-pop hooks on “Martin,” the ascendant stadium exuberance and cutting faux-optimistic platitudes of “Life Worth Missing” or the Neil Young-like, mournful elegy of folksy interlude “What’s With You Lately” (led on vocals by guitarist Ethan Ives), Car Seat Headrest demonstrates its ever-dependable proficiency in turning out memorable bangers, even if the parts don’t cohere into as satisfying a whole.

Much has been made, however, of this album’s increased emphasis on electronic instrumentation and production over guitar-led punk stylings, and the addition feels like a natural and intriguing extension of Car Seat Headrest’s established sound. Where the desolate bass/vocal dichotomy of “Deadlines (Hostile)” evokes the band’s seminal 2016 release Teens of Denial, its twin track “Deadlines (Thoughtful)” is a dark, clubby EDM anthem crafted in the same melodic shape as its sibling but more successfully evoking the Web 2.0 malaise of the two songs’ shared hook: “Can’t get connected / Can’t stay connected.” The warped, distorted vocals and anxious, building beat of “Hymn (Remix)” and the weary electronic trudge beneath the extended free-association spoken bridge of “There Must Be More Than Blood” are equally intriguing, if less tangible forays into this new sonic palette.

The highlight of the album, however, largely keeps away from this experimentalist bent. A vicious post-#MeToo takedown of the American film industry, “Hollywood” opens with a ballsy, purposeful rock ’n’ roll stomp, with its narrative potential expressed through the down-the-rabbit-hole delirium of its structure-free progression. Toledo growls how he is “sick of violence / sick of money / sick of drinking / sick of drugs / sick of fucking / sick of staring at the ads on the bus” before his voice erupts into a coarse howl on the laser-beam hook: “Hollywood makes me want to puke.” At barely three and a half minutes, it’s a heady, rollicking experience — spellbinding in its clarity, though its phase-by-phase movement through various segments alludes to a longer version bristling with seedy characters and unexpected twists, in line with the bizarre ambition of previous operatic efforts such as Twin Fantasy’s “Beach Life-In-Death” (2011) or Teens of Denial’s “Ballad of Costa Concordia.