Titus Andronicus: The Airing of Grievances

Label: Troubleman Unlimited

Titus Andronicus are five kids from the suburbs (Glen Rock, New Jersey) with mile-wide chips on their shoulders. Their angst is hot and pervasive and sticks to your skin like dirty-city-summer sweat: singer Patrick Stickles rages against his own birth in “My Time Outside The Womb,, his very existence in “No Future Part I” (“I am dying slowly from Patrick Stickles disease”), and death itself in band manifesto “Titus Andronicus,” whose melody dances and stings, marked by clapping hands and singalong voices. This singalong tunefulness makes Titus Andronicus exceptional; they evoke the best of the Walkmen (at whose Marcata studio The Airing of Grievances was recorded) or even the Kinks, in their clamorous simplicity. The melodies make the sickness taste sweet, make the sour mess of twitching, thrashing anger go down like candy: Stickles’ scratchy, ghost-of-Conor-Oberst wail screams betrayal, rage, death – and the driving beats and impeccable melodies make it impossible not to dance along. The Airing of Grievances is a beautiful, unhinged terror of a record, cloaked in guitar fuzz and hummable tunes: one of the year’s best, but you’ll need to buckle up. (Anna)