Arts and Culture
Looking For Arts & Culture Exclusives? Get Your Cheeky Card!Chances are that you, like most people, have never heard of Titus Andronicus. But you can expect that to change very soon…
This five-piece from Glen Rock, New Jersey is too good to keep a secret any longer.
Front man (and brains of the operation) Patrick Stickles seems like Jim Carrey’s character in The Cable Guy; only as a child he was plopped down in front of a jukebox rather than a television. And this specific jukebox was filled with the best albums from: Bruce Springsteen, Bright Eyes, Wilco, Broken Social Scene, Dinosaur Jr., Modest Mouse, and The Arcade Fire. Titus Andronicus uses all of these influences, paying a clear homage to each of these artists while making a musical mosaic of their own.
The band’s most recent release and sophomore (soon-to-be-officially-declared) success, The Monitor, carries a very literal and timely theme of war running throughout; but it seems to me that this is all a metaphor for the battle against conformity which Stickles wants to wage. If you can get past his vocals – which can grow tiresome in the constant discord and strain – this album takes you on quite a journey. At times you are running, and other times it feels like a slow-and-steady pace, but all along the way there are many interesting things to experience.
It’s their raw emotion and relentless power that are the most attractive about Titus. If this is what their recorded material sounds like, I cannot wait to be in the same room as them while performing!
Enjoy this now, before the hipsters swarm all over it and pick its carcass clean. Which, funny enough, has a specific date; March 13th, they play Reckless Records in Chicago at 4 pm.
I’ll see you there!
