Review: Titus Andronicus – The Monitor (2010)
I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth.
Titus Andronicus have a lot of reasons to be be put out. Derisive commentary aside, they’re from New Jersey – the weather alone could make one seasonally depressed, at very least, not to mention the no-left-turns and no-pumping-your-own-gas laws. The inspirational means are, at this point, practically a rite of passage for many great albums: just before it came time to write and record, bandleader Patrick Stickles went through a bad breakup, and The Monitor came pouring out like gore from a musket wound. In spite of Stickles’ evident talent for — notepad to microphone — dismembering his past failures and shortcomings, the record has a scrappy, comeback-kid streak etched from end to end. His run-ragged cry of “I’m at the end of my rope / and I feel like swinging!” in the middle of “No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future” feels like game 7, bottom of the 9th, full count – and though the odds are stacked long against, Titus Andronicus pretty well knock it out of the park for ten straight tracks.
Titus Andronicus’ “A More Perfect Union,” from The Monitor.
A record this startlingly emotive and historically steeped could only have come from the east coast. It’s draped in the history of the early states and the Civil War, referencing Lincoln and Minor Threat alike as the guitar solos soar and Stickles’ ragged pipes roil with palpable fervor. Yet for its left-field penchant and all the see-sawing between celebration and wallowing, The Monitor is light enough on its feet and packed with more than enough riffage to avoid sounding like a history lesson, or worse, simply a cobbled mess of emotions. In fact, just as the track list reaches critical mass with “Four Score And Seven,” respite finally hits home with the carousing “Theme From ‘Cheers’,” wherein bassist Ian Graetzer is allowed some face time of his own.
Titus Andronicus surely detest being called a lo-fi band. Though it might sound at first that the band operates at peak capacity at all times, there’s engaging new evidence of the myriad modes of attack that are a strict creative step forward from the similarly excellent The Airing of Grievances. The Monitor is not merely an aural evolution, however. It’s filled to bursting with a renewed impetus and maturity that outshine their debut in nearly every sense. In no uncertain terms: it sets the bar, in many ways, for a new decade of forthcoming angst. And what’s more, it’s amplified at every turn by the undercurrent of patriotic camaraderie, like some incendiary Ken Burns doc with a short fuse and a deafening report. This is modern punk rock at its explosive, cathartic best.
