Titus Andronicus
The Monitor
XL Recordings
It’s easy to look at the world around you and feel despair. Checking Facebook finds a torrent of self-pity, self-importance, and self-aggrandizing suffering that would leave future generations laughing themselves to death upon discovering it — were they likely not going to be just as self-absorbed as we are. There is no pain in the modern world like the pain that you are currently feeling, and we’ll blog everyday to prove it. And yet with the constant focus on “me” that has even infected our network newsrooms (message to CNN: Twitter posts from viewers aren’t news) there are people who will think Titus Andronicus’ use of the Civil War as a metaphor for crappy times in New Jersey is out of line.
To clarify, the band isn’t citing so much the Civil War as the specific battle of The Monitor, a battle whose aftermath left Abraham Lincoln saying “I am now the most miserable man living.” It’s a sentiment that’s unknowingly paraphrased a million times or more every day in the digital spleen venting of our generation. And Titus Andronicus seems to be laughing about it. This is indeed a record about war, one fought everyday by kids who drink their problems away while complaining that nothing is getting better.
Of course that sounds terribly dreary on paper, but when delivered with a shout, riding a wave of fuzzy guitars the message is a downright party. At their bones these are simple punk songs, the kind you could easily plunk out on an acoustic if you had the chords. Like Neutral Milk Hotel, Titus Andronicus displays a gift for simple songs that get better through augmentation instead of overly complicated works so focused on being brilliant they forget to be songs. By the time a swell of horns or six-minute shoe gaze part hits you’re already invested, you might as well just go with it.
After all the Springsteen comparisons bestowed upon Titus frontman Patrick Stickles, spitting “I never wanted to change the world, but I’m looking for a new New Jersey/Because tramps like us, baby, we were born to die” on their opener, might seem like a smack; but the observation isn’t without merit. Springsteen writes songs about a New Jersey full of hard workers who are just trying to make it; but, in the last ten years, the state’s major musical exports have been self pity-obsessed emo bands.
We’re due for a brutally funny and honest, sometimes painfully so, examination of the place that brought us that culture. But by the time Stickles asks “Is there a human alive that can look themselves in the face/Without winking, or say what they mean without drinking/Or believe in something without thinking/”What if somebody doesn’t approve?”/Is there a soul on this Earth that isn’t too frightened to move?” it’s clear you could replace “New Jersey” in the opening with almost anywhere.
That’s where the magic lives. You’ll hear influences as diverse as the Replacements or the Pogues musically, but the universal nature of the lyrical civics class on the culture that inspired them is pure Springsteen. It is a funny, but often sad, story that might be set in a particular state, but whose themes are so depressingly universal anyone could understand. My parent’s generation was born to run; mine seems content to bitch about not being able to find the road.
Titus Andronicus’ namesake, Shakespeare’s earliest attempt at writing a tragedy, and their spiritual genre of punk, share one fascinating thing in common. When either is presented lazily the resulting product can easily become a boring uncomfortable mess to experience. Poorly made punk rock is waste of energy. Titus Andronicus’ ultraviolent tale of murder and revenge is often the victim of high school drama teachers who fancy themselves Wes Craven, leaving a complex plot to languish in favor of Jason Voorhees fantasies. But when either is done well, they can be glorious. The Monitor is punk done well; snottily comparing a war that ripped apart a country to the everyday bullshit of the modern world, and not only making you say “damn straight” but inspiring a reach for the repeat button.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
