Titus Andronicus
The Airing Of Grievances

THE REVIEW

Their name refers to Shakespeare's most gruesome tragedy. The last track of their album is named after Albert Camus. Another piece gathers thoughts born from watching Brueghel's "Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus." They might seem like a boring and somewhat blasé band, these New Jersey Americans who have risen to fame in recent months. Yet they have made one of the most badass rock albums of the year.

Bringing together the folk attitude of the Pogues, a crooked and half-shouted singing that's halfway between Shane MacGowan, Bright Eyes, and Casablancas of the Strokes, Springsteen-like arrangements rendered punk, Neutral Milk Hotel-like folk rock, early Nirvana nihilistic hardcore, and even hints of shoegaze, Titus Adronicus manage to sound absurdly original.

Singer Patrick Stickles gladly shouts, but this does not compromise the melodic (lo-fi and gritty) nature of many tracks, some of which verge on pub anthems. Thus "My Time Outside The Womb" and "Arms Against Atrophy" mimic the Strokes as an odd group might do in a provincial pub on Friday night, while "Joset Of Nazareth's Blues", aided by the female back-up vocals, could be an Arcade Fire performance after a devastating drunken spree. There’s punk and new wave in "Albert Camus" and "Titus Andronicus." "Upon Viewing Brueghel's "Landscape With Fall Of Icarus"" has a spine-tingling chorus over mighty guitars: too bad it's repeated only one and a half times.

Do not think, then, of a cleaned-up and curated sound: here fidelity is nonexistent, the flats are continual, the reverberations deafening. Sometimes you seem to sense the presence of a piano or horns in the background: but it's just an impression (it's not just an impression, however, that the piano starting "Titus Andronicus" quotes Arcade Fire's "Rebellion").

Over these sounds lie all the complaints aired by Stickles' rants: the shitty life of the average young American (as Stickles says: "even my own mother will tell you I am an asshole"), the utter lack of prospects other than drinking like a fish from morning till night, the preaching of an exasperated nihilism, the desire for suicide. But then just play the disheartened "No Future Part I" to make you want to do "No Future Part II: The Days After No Future." And on it goes, no future after no future: because this album will have quite a lot of it.