REVIEW: Titus Andronicus’ The Monitor

I’ve been meaning to write about this record for over a month, but I guess I couldn’t decide how I felt about it. There’s no doubt that when the songs are good, they’re great. From what I can gather, the band is made up of a bunch of nerds from North Jersey and is named after Shakespeare’s play. The record is full of Civil War themes including clips of recited speeches from the era crossed with seemingly anachronistic references to modern ideas like cars. I often describe the record as Civil War punk, but punk doesn’t really accurately describe the diversity of their sound. The lyrics tend to be appropriately angst-filled but that angst is often hidden behind fun sing-a-long chants like “The enemy is everywhere!” and “You will always be a loser!” The whole package is nothing if not interesting.

The record opens with the blistering “A More Perfect Union.” The song manages to be catchy, noisy and driving all at the same time with an intriguingly complicated song structure. The song’s chorus is in effect instrumental highlighted by a catchy lead guitar part. Very cool. Check out the video below.

Unfortunately, this leadoff track is undeniably the best song on the album, which I always find a little disappointing.

The next few songs continue the Civil War Punk theme, feature the previously mentioned subversively fun sing-a-longs, and are all overall fairly strong songs. The song “Titus Andronicus Forever” below is a good example of what I’m talking about.

The record starts to hit the wall on the back-to-back nine minute epics “A Pot in Which to Piss” and “Four Score and Seven.” As a guy who has spent plenty of time in bands, I’m relatively certain these are songs that the guys in the band are particularly proud of and view as accomplishments. Having said that, I suspect they are just too much for the average listener. Both of these songs still sneak in a few really nice moments. Check out “A Pot in Which to Piss.”

Also, the speech clips scattered throughout the record hurt it as well. They are an interesting inclusion, but they get old upon repeated listenings. They should have been included on separate tracks. For example, the previously mentioned “A More Perfect Union” starts with forty-plus seconds quoting Abraham Lincoln that cannot easily be skipped by the listener… Yet you’ll notice it’s conveniently absent from the video above. It just adds unnecessary frustration.

While I can’t in good conscience say this record is without missteps, I still think it’s worth checking out for the first three or four songs alone. It’s definitely an album that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and maybe that’s what Titus Andronicus was after.