Artist: Titus Andronicus
Album: The Monitor
Released: March 2010
Label: XL Recordings
Genre: punk / alternative rock
Purchase date: 7 June 2010
Format: mp3 files
Source: eMusic
You can't fault this New Jersey-based punk band of lacking ambition. Their sophomore release, The Monitor, is of all things a loose concept album that uses the American Civil War as running metaphor. The music is brash and raw, but the songs themselves are extremely well-crafted, with wonderful melody and clever lyrics. The emotions of the music really carry this record: the highs are high and the lows are low. There's a wryness in the lyric, as if they're at once extremely serious and winking at the camera. They paraphrase their local hero Bruce Springsteen in the opening track, singing, "Tramps like us, baby we were born to die." This music is as subtle as a fist to the jaw, and man, can they rock out, with nods to '70s arena rock and the LA hardcore scene.
There's a joy to this music along with the anger, and that joy is infectious.
Rating: A-
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