Titus Andronicus - Local Business

Titus Andronicus - Still Life With Hot Deuce On Silver Platter

Plays for 5:30

Oh look they gave us the lyrics! 

Wicked song. Opens pretty well I reckon.

Titus Andronicus quickly became one of my favourite bands this year when I got my mits on their second album, The Monitor – an amazing album that thematically covers both coming of age type issues along with old timey wholesome American values. You can listen to the album start to finish - I love the SHIT out of albums that I can do that with. They quite recently put out their third full length, Local Business, but will it hold up to the strengths of The Monitor?

As a band, they’ve been lumped into the ‘Folk-Punk/Indie’ genre. It works. It’s been said the band takes influence from all sorts of good music varying from Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Neutral Milk Hotel and Pulp (who I personally believe to be the best pop act ever) and it’s paid off. They’re named after the Shakespeare play too, kind of an indicator that they take a shit load of good influences. Luckily they push out fantastic stuff with said influences..

Their music seems to focus mainly on the vocals as the guitars have been mixed a bit lower and the distortion seems to have the treble turned down just to make everything else a little stronger, but the tunes on this album are a little ‘summery’ if that makes sense. The drums are crisp and snappy, the vocals are a bit whiny and grainy (in a good way, sometimes a little ‘Jebadiah’-esque but better), and hold downbeat themes – the album literally opens with “Ok, I think by now we’ve established - everything is inherently worthless”. Another line I love is “Try to swallow while you’re still too young – that your dick’s too small to fuck the world”. How is that not awesome?

This album will take you about four listens to get. A lot of the variation between tracks that was so evident on the last album is lost – this being one of the weaknesses of Local Business. Many of the tracks sound very similar and you really have to pay attention to the songs to find what the hell is going on. They them seem to open the same way which can get old after the first couple of tracks. The only time it really starts to feel obviously diverse is by the final track, ‘Tried to Quit Smoking’ which rolls slow and sounds pretty country influenced. Everything else has a pretty good rolling punk/indie vibe, but like I said it can get a bit samey if you listen to it from start to finish. On that note though it’s still very tolerable, unlike beach house’s release this year which starts off really good and has some solid tracks on it but is fucking ruined by track number 3 because it all SOUNDS THE SAME. You seriously can’t sit down and listen to the whole thing! (might be a blog post in this…)

Back to influence, the album seems to incorporate a few elements of old rock. I haven’t heard a lot of Bruce Springsteen’s stuff but there’s a few tracks in there that seem to replicate his style. There’s also a bit of subtle piano work involved that kinda makes me think of old timey western saloons… but there’s an honest familiarity to the album that is evading me like crazy because I can’t quite put my finger on it. Regardless of this, the album has been noted as maybe their most accessible one to date by a couple of other reviews I’ve read, so maybe this is a good starting point for someone who doesn’t want something as abrasive as The Monitor was at times.

Thematically this is a cool album. Maybe not as ambitious as The Monitor, but it covers all the fun stuff like eating disorders, nihilism, hot deuces, the apathy behind second hand smoke, romance and all sorts of other fun stuff. Some of the tracks seem a bit dorky and redundant, (I’m looking at you, Electric Man) but it’s all still pretty fun and easy to listen to.

Recommended for: Difficult to say! They take influence from Neutral Milk Hotel so that’d be a good starting point. Beside that though, give it four listens. I think anyone who’s even the slightest bit cynical can get down with this. Or anyone looking for that post-punk sound wherein the music is happy but the lyrics are a bit downbeat (think The Cure, only if the Americans did it in 2010 and didn’t ruin it like they did with the IT crowd).

P.s.
I’d also like to say that their last album, ‘The Monitor’’ is VERY much worth listening to and has made it into a couple of top 10 charts for 2010 for good reasons. I really recommend sussing it out, or hell if you’re over at my place I’ll lend it to you. Like I said, I can listen to that thing start to finish and it’s a really rare thing for me to find an album I can do that with. It deserves every ounce of praise I’m giving it. Expect a review at some stage.

Titus Andronicus - Ecce Homo (Live video) (I know it says Hot Deuce again the uploader has a syndrome)

Runs for: (like ten minutes or something)

Ok so the band has decided that they don't want to put any of the actual tracks from the album up on youtube or soundcloud to help me make a post that does them justice which is a pain in the ass. 

So live recording is gonna have to do.