Sunday, August 1, 2010

Album of the Year - Titus Andronicus - The Monitor


So i'm like all full of fucking ambition but the corner that i type in is fucking hot and sucks the life right out of my creaky bones, i'm sweating man and soon i'll be stripping down and looking all Henry Rollins circa 1992 or some shit in nothing but my boxers as i attempt to get shit down and from what the weather man tells me it's only gonna get hotter...

Now imagine if you will that Paul Westerberg and Shane MacGowan had a love child. Toss in the Boss as the godfather cuz the kids from Jersey and name him after a Shakespeare play. The most apt description of Titus Andronicus is the Replacements meeting the Pogues and i've been listening to this album for months now and much like the Hold Steady's Separation Sunday it just keeps on growing. It's a concept album in the loosest sense of the word, somehow based on the Civil War and growing up in Jersey but what it really is is a brilliant piece of art, Patrick Stickles at the tender age of 23 may have just written his masterpiece, call Joe Heller cuz this shit is going to be hard to top and everything hereafter will compared to it, the lyrics are absolute fucking genius, i mean a 14 minute punk rock song? and yes regardless of what anyone says the Battle of Hampton Roads is a punk rock song complete with a bagpipe interlude and Theme from "Cheers" may just be the story of my fucking life, i hate when people steal my thoughts and articulate them better than i do but listening to that song makes me wander down memory lane from my wasted 20's into my speedy early 30's and into the gray beard of nearly 40, fucking brilliant, but enough, just go buy the album and support these guys cuz they fucking deserve it.... and lets see if i can rip off a post a day for the next few day just for the hell of it.

1 comment:

The Unbearable Banishment said...

That they chose Titus Andronicus says plenty. Have you ever seen a production or the Julie Taymor movie? It's a bloodbath. A daughter walks around through most of the story with her hands cut off (by her two rapists). A Queen unknowingly eats her sons who are baked into a pie. There's plenty more where THAT came from. Go with it.