Titus Andronicus, a five piece hailing from Glen Rock, New Jersey, are set to release their latest album The Monitor on March 9. This will be their first full-length album to be released by XL Recordings, and if their 2008 album The Airing of Grievances is any indication, this album promises dark lyrics paired with an unlimited supply of raw energy. Let us see if presuppositions ring true. 
The first track, entitled “A More Perfect Union,” starts The Monitor with a one-two punch of exhausting energy and absurdly fun guitar riffs. “A More Perfect Union” is a surprising seven minutes long, yet it never drags or loses steam. The lyrics have not lighted up any from The Airing of Grievances, although with lines like “I’m looking for a ‘new’ New Jersey, ‘cause tramps like us, baby we were born to die,” there’s an exuberance to their desperation that makes them more Coen Brothers than Wes Anderson, more Burn After Reading than The Royal Tennenbaums. “Titus Andronicus Forever” acts as an interlude song, leading us to track three, “No Future Part Three: Escape from No Future.” The end of this song is sure to be a crowd-pleasing live encore selection with a call-and-response of “You will always be a loser…and that’s okay!” Titus dials it down a bit with military snare and jangly guitars of “Richard II,” although “dialing it down” for this band means little more than a subdued introduction that segues into a spastic, thrash-about tune with shouted vocals.
The next track, “A Pot in Which to Piss,” is the highlight of the album and possibly Titus Andronicus’ best composed song to date. Not wanting to spoil the many surprises this song has in store for the listener, just know that this track has the power to transport you to far-away settings, not unlike Neutral Milk Hotel or The Decemberists. Oh, and there’s plucky little piano riffs too. “Four Score and Seven” is an ever-shifting, mostly instrumental jam that alternately strolls and stomps. “Theme from Cheers” is a leaving-the-bar-with-good-friends-after-a-long-night-of-pints-and-billiards kind of tune, and “To Old Friends and New” and “…And Ever” move the album along nicely to the fourteen minute finale “The Battle of Hampton Roads.” These fourteen minutes serves as a nice bookend to the previous nine songs, romping through crescendo-decrescendo pairs like their lives depend on it. Wow.
This album shows almost no weaknesses, but there IS a relatively large bone that must be picked: the repeated use of spoken word samples throughout the album. This group seems to have such an outstanding grasp of how their songs flow, both within each individual tune and from one song to another. However, they don’t seem to understand how disengaging and interruptive these samples are (especially considering where they’re placed). There are four such samples interspersed in the album: the beginning of track one, end of track two, beginning of track five and end of track nine. Looking at these placements, it would seem that Titus was intending to use the samples as a cohesive force, much like the “Spider” songs functioned in mewithoutYou’s masterpiece Brother, Sister. If this was their intention, the opposite actually occurred; the energy (a word that could have been used at least thirty-six times in this review thus far) that carries The Monitor is unnaturally and forcefully halted each time. Let us hope they learn their lesson and omit these samples in future releases.
Rob Gordon, the protagonist played by John Cusack in High Fidelity, famously said about making a mix tape: “You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so then you gotta cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.” Titus Andronicus followed these rules to a tee on The Monitor, and the resulting album is quite an accomplishment. Minor technical nit-pickings aside, this album is like the illegitimate child of Born Ruffians’ Red, Yellow, and Blue and The Decemberists’ The Crane Wife. Highly, highly recommended.
Track Listing:
1. A More Perfect Union
2. Titus Andronicus Forever
3. No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future
4. Richard II Or Extraordinary Popular Dimensions And The Madness Of Crowds (Responsible Hate Anthem)
5. A Pot In Which To Piss
6. Four Score And Seven
7. Theme From “Cheers”
8. To Old Friends And New
9. …And Ever
10. The Battle Of Hampton Roads
Great review. I personally love the spoken word pieces – but I'm a nerd. I think it takes modern interpretations of conflict and justifies them with honest 150 year old expressions of the human condition from people the band extols as examples of truth. And I like different shit on an album but maybe that is just me. You hit the nail on the head though – "this album promises dark lyrics paired with an unlimited supply of raw energy." That combination makes it my favorite album in a long time. Great.