If early reports are any indication, “The Monitor”, by New Jersey band Titus Andronicus will wind up being one of the most positively reviewed albums of the year, if not in recent memory. Just about every notice I’ve read is quick to applaud it’s multi layered conceptual themes and anthem laced electric folk approach.
The reviews I’ve read are also quick to draw comparisons to other bands in the history of rock to try to give you, the reader some kind of point of reference. In fairness , Titus does do a lot of pop culture name checking when they step up to the mike and sing so in some way they kind of invite it. Like a shell game though, their influences come at you rapid fire, too quickly to dwell on one of them for very long.
The obvious ones, like Springsteen, Westerberg and Steinman are well documented, but since everybody who reviews the record is doing it, I just can’t help it but to play along. So let me add to the pile when I tell you, the reader that this music has the angst and amplification of Husker Du, the passion of ‘80‘s bands like The Alarm and Big Country, the innovation of SMiLE era Brian Wilson , the tuneful tongue in cheek slacker comedy of Camper Van Beethoven and the editing brilliance of the first Big Audio Dynamite album.
The point here to me anyway, is that influences are everywhere provided one is able to sort through them and conjure it into something that harkens back to a classic. It’s harder though to deliver it in a style and manner that allows them to incorporate their own unique thumbprint. “The Monitor” hits the ground running in this fashion and pretty much never looks back.
Metaphors abound here, what with all the Civil War imagery of the cover art and the Abe Lincoln quotes. The lyrical themes here though are of our own personal struggles and battles. Not as well documented as American History perhaps, but no less important and maybe even more so. Like an ironclad battleship firing a wake up salvo across the bow of the music scene, “The Monitor” has more than it’s share of 21st century rock anthems for the disenfranchised. It reaches out to our tired, our poor, our huddling masses yearning to be free. It reminds us on one song that everything is still less than zero.
So, on your marks men ready set, lets get loaded and forget.