Titus Andronicus, infamous as the most bloody of Shakespeare’s plays, often referred to as an Elizabethan Tarantino movie… makes you wonder why it took so long for a band to assume the moniker really. Strange though that a band who, on paper sound like another Hold Steady or Gaslight Anthem would pick the name too… but these five young men from suburban Glen Rock, New Jersey look set to confound us. Lead singer Patrick Stickles blends emo (and we’re talking early Dashboard Confessional here, not latter day Fall Out Boy) lyricism with old school storytelling that the godfather of New Jersey rock would appreciate a great deal (and no, Mr Bon Jovi, we don’t mean you… we’re talking about uncle Bruce). The band are less E Street though, with their punk riffery and claustrophobic sound. In fact there’s a feel of claustrophobia throughout the album here, like a caged beast waiting for the moment to pounce, a fact that makes the tunes that much more hard hitting. Of course there’s intelligence here too, with that name and song titles like ‘Albert Camus’ and ‘Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus’ you wouldn’t expect anything less. Thankfully this isn’t a load of flaunted intelligence, rather it makes you appreciate that these guys probably have a fairly good outlook on life. It’s that balance of intelligent thought and feral, thrusting musicality that makes this band so interesting, as encapsulated on ‘Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ’ when the song, a melancholy ballad, is torn apart by Stickles’ bellowing cry of “Fuck You” and the band launch into a celtic tinged punk stomp that would make the Pogues proud!
Check out Titus Andronicus at: www.myspace.com/titusandronicus