Owned since: 2010, day of release
Genre: Springsteen punk meets history nerds
Where I bought it: Bullit eindhoven
Year: 2010
Label/pressing: XL records
When I moved up to my current place of living, there was finally room to move in a bunch of stuff I left at my parents for years in places I couldn’t really get to easily. I never really had the room at the other places but now finally there was an attic for some reason. Which became home to a ton of the old crap I collected over the years. Runs of Donald Duck comics, weird 1950’s pulp novels and other stuff that just kind of existed at my parents till I moved in here and they decided to clean up their own attic finally.
This led to my dad giving me a plastic bag with around 20 CDs I hadn’t seen since around 2014 or something a while back. I heard they were in a shoe box and when I moved someone just put them in the attic at my parents house. It happened with a bunch of stuff, even though I was already selling a lot of my CDs around that time, I held on to a few for sentimental reasons and some just vanished. I think the total of CDs I own nowadays are around 40 and most are either tie-ins with Blurays/DVDs or even books. Still there are a bunch of releases mostly from 2006-2012 I held onto for the memories. Out of my head this includes Arcade Fire’s Funeral, Ponytail’s Ice Cream Spiritual and the soundtrack to Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist I got at a showing for that movie. Going through the box pretty recently one thing really sprang out to me and that is the old busted up jewel case of Titus Andronicus’s The Monitor.
When the Monitor released in 2010, there wasn’t a record more perfect for the person I was at 18 year old. A weird jumbled mix of nerves, lust for life and mostly a lot of (misplaced) punk fueled shouting, endless going to shows across the country and meeting people. The concert list from those times shows me at shows around 2-3 per week; from squats to bigger festivals. There’s a lot of memories here also; from my busted eye getting a foot in my face during a Ceremony show, my drunk friend hurling the insides of a bottle of wine at the crowd that came to see his shitty punk band, mostly just a lot of biking and sweat. Between 2008 and 2016 I saw Titus Andronicus also 4 times and they slowly became one of my go-to bands to listen to during the bike rides home from the night train finally reaching the city near me.
My relationship with the band is one of love-hate. For every great album (this one, The Airing of Grievances) there are records that completely miss the point (Local Business) or they muddle their point with endless filler songs; The Most Lamentable Tragedy is a 1.5 hour rock opera in acts which is impressive but I can only get through it when the sun shines down on earth in a special direction it seems. The band never really settled much on a steady lineup; mostly being a platform for singer/guitarist Patrick Stickles to scream about history, the world being bad and try to at least do something about it with your friends. It’s so deeply rooted in hardcore punk ideals while very much expanding on the sound. In the basis it’s punk music but intercut with endless influences like the scrappy nature of The Replacements, the pull up your bootstraps New Jersey attitude from Bruce Springsteen and mostly just the Hold Steady. It’s an easy line to draw from Minnesota’s finest to this band of New Jersey misfits where they take 80’s indie rock and make it something new without completely cutting out their clear influences.
The Monitor is a theme album (very) loosely based around the American Civil War. Being not American, a subject I just have passing knowledge on but it mostly is based on the Battle of Hampton Roads which is one of the first real motorized ship battles in history. There’s also a ton of Billy Bragg and Bruce Springsteen references in it, which I do get, making it a weird mishmash of punk activism and a history lesson. Sounds insufferable? Well kinda. Stickles’s voice is always just one too loud scream away from cracking and his lyrics can be a bit verbose but overall they’re all rooted in the idea of what punk was built on; support your surroundings and improve them. Titus Andronicus’ history kind of started with long gone NYC DIY place Shea Stadium where the band played a ton and Stickles worked. It’s where the insane lineup of around 20 musicians that play on this album, in full band or guest posts, mostly hails from. People from bands like Ponytail, Felice Brothers and The Hold Steady show up here in guest spots with the various crowd shout along verses spread to this massive punk rock opera record.
It’s an album of big gestures; every song is packed with big choruses to shout along, brass instruments in some songs and more tempo changes then various prog rock bands have. Just an honest energy boost to get out there and do things. There are so many power chords being drowned out by loud fuzzy bass on this it just feels like a workout mix for old punks trying to get their run in for the day. It has something for everyone: the folk punks, the old hardcore punk guys and just general indie guys seeking an energetic guitar band. It doesn’t take any time avoiding what it is about with opener A More Perfect Union already full of those endless chord changes and 7 minutes run time punk song with endless lyrics about New Jersey, the world and feel miserable by Stickles. It’s a battle hymn for a band that is all feeling and it kind of loses the focus going forward at full speed. It is where the power of this record lies, just a band going full on their loud weird 8 minute punk songs that most of the time feel like 3 different songs thrown together.
Highlight of this all is the 15 minutes spanning album closer The Battle Of Hampton Roads which goes full on into the album’s loose concept of that historic boat battle. An epic full of part folk music, Springsteen-ism and punk rock that endlessly keeps building to a closer that is just endless noise led in by a very Billy Bragg intro, which sees Stickles just going full on rambling solo electric guitar and setting up what is the most epic song on an album of long weird punk epics. Endless building up and down it really nails what made Titus Andronicus a band I liked that much because it knows how to build the suspense of an extended build but fuse it with punk’s raw energy. Even more when it goes into that part that just sounds like drunk Neutral Milk Hotel playing a battle hymn in the middle of the song. It’s an album I can talk endlessly about but all my opinions are as all over the place as the album itself is but my main takeaway is that it still holds the same energy for me then when it was released. It’s always a jolt of energy the second I put it on and keeps it going for its near 70 minute running time which is impressive for someone with as low an attention span as me. Even more in a life setting this was just perfect music to lose yourself in while you watch Stickles’s massive beard streaming with sweat.
Looking back 12 years later when I write this, the record is very much a relic of a certain time that also brought us bands like No Age. Bands just kind of formed in their weird little cliques and just got by on world-of-mouth till a medium sized indie label snagged them up for records you can find in 5 euro cd bins everywhere these days. A time where social media was slowly replacing the old punk touring address letters you used to book tours with. Weirdly a period I remain sentimental for because it was the start of when music really started taking over my life and started to find people who liked the same stuff as me more often. But mostly it reminds me of being stuck in a beer drenched venue while the first chords of A More Perfect Union drop and absolutely losing myself in the moment with the 150 people there.
Titus Andronicus are still active. I got a lot to say about the albums they did after this but mostly I just respect Stickles still doing very much his own thing. The band still got the bones from The Monitor in them but have changed their sound around to various versions of it and never really giving in to popular trends. 2022’s The Will to Live is again an album full of 7 minute songs, overly long lyrics and the same endless fusing of genres. You love to see it. Long live Titus Andronicus.
Sloot thoughts: Scumford and Sons (complimentary)