If Patrick Stickles can take five years to write and record The Most Lamentable Tragedy Of Titus Andronicus, I can take the 29 song album suite and stuff it back together again at my own pace.The fictional story of a manic depressive who meets his double, discovers it is alright to lose your mind, and dies at the end, told from multiple points of views, and various variations on guitar rock, and produced by Kevin McMahon (Kevin told me this years ago about The Monitor: “Patrick knows exactly what he wants. He’ll have a spoken word piece to be edited in down to the second and he tells me exactly what it wants it to sound like. When XL (the British indie) came around to make suggestions he completely ignored them.”), with strings arranged by wunderkind Owen Pallett.
Yesterday I thought it was good not great, today I think it is great but I am not sure how great. It is more Local Business than The Monitor, and so far I haven’t discovered its “The Battle Of Hampton Roads” which does not mean
1 -it isn’t there
or
2 – it needs to be.
Among other things, TMLT is a tribute to the schizophrenic and bi-polat, sharing a song title with him, and, of course a subject matter.
Over the next couple of days I am going to take a closer listen to an album that when you are busy comparing it to other works, you might include Tommy, another deeply disturbed superstar. So trickle by trickle, Stickle by Stickle, (and with lost of help from his Genius Annotations, here we we:
1 – The Angry Hour – Our protagonist wakes up to a new day on this new day, which sound a little like My Chemical Romance in instrumental mode, and then like noise modulations – C+
2 – No Future Part IV: No Future Triumphant – Thundering its way in, this is a classic roar of rock and roll with a Who instrumental middle, which makes you appreciate both the Who and Titus -but mostly the Who… about the horrors of being awake. And following the suicide of Jack Landesman is something more than scary posturing – B
3 – Stranded (I’m On Way) – Third listen and it is pretty excellent, though without a lyric sheet give up on Patrick’s shatter gun explanation of existential angst words caused by… playing the old hits? He hits up the Ritalin, doesn’t find salvation in the cross. It is a great song though it is hard to empathize with it -the lyric is so personal Patrick misses the join me in my misery. In the end, his heart and him have gone their separate ways. Apparently, Patrick had a meltdown in 2012, finally leaving his Mom’s home in New Jersey and touring behind Local Business. This is inspired by the moment. A typical Titus rave up – B+
OK, more later… “Lonely Boy” is coming up.
