New band releases first great album of 2010

This is a love letter to my favorite album of 2010, so far.
That album, Titus Andronicus’ “The Monitor,” may also be the craziest one of the year, as it’s a punk-rock concept album about the Civil War featuring a song called “Theme from ‘Cheers.’” The “Cheers” in that title is indeed the bar from the famous television show.
Titus Andronicus hasn’t made a big name for itself, yet. Its debut album, “The Airing of Grievances,” was released on an independent label in 2009, and other then a small cult following, most music fans probably never heard of it.
The band would have been off my radar, too, except once in awhile record companies will send me free CDs, in hopes I’ll write about them. Most of these CDs are worthless except for the jewel packages they often don’t come in anymore, but every now and then something catches my ear.
“The Airing of Grievances” caught my ear, mainly because I had read a few reviews about the band comparing it to The Replacements, one of my all-time favorite bands. Plus, Titus Andronicus is from New Jersey, home to Bruce Springsteen, who is my favorite rocker.
I liked it a lot because it sounded as though The Replacements and Springsteen had a child, and that child grew up listening to nothing but The Clash, Rage Against the Machine and his parents’ music.
When I heard the band had a new album out, and I realized the record company wasn’t going to send me a free copy, I made a trip to Radio KAOS to purchase it, and fortunately owner Randy Wagner had it in stock, like he usually always does with those obscure titles other stores don’t carry.
From the first listen it was clear “The Monitor” was a bold artistic statement and a huge leap forward for this band, one that in a perfect world would propel them into stardom.
“No, I never wanted to change the world, but I’m looking for a new New Jersey/Because tramps like us, baby, we were born to die,” belts lead singer and guitarist Patrick Stickles in the opening track, “A More Perfect Union.” He quotes and then dismisses Springsteen in one line, and by the end of the track he’s sarcastically calling for people to “rally around the flag.”
Throughout the album the band makes references to the Civil War. It doesn’t make much sense, but truly, what concept album has ever made sense? The plotlines of The Who’s “Tommy” and of Green Day’s “American Idiot” are probably some of the most comprehensible ones, but even those are sometimes non-sensible.
A good concept album, like those examples and like “The Monitor,” will have one or two main themes, with songs built around them, and those themes are often vague enough to apply to other things in life other than what they seem to be about.
So while Titus Andronicus is often referencing the Civil War – it even includes Stickles’ high school history teacher reading excerpts from Abraham Lincoln speeches throughout it – that war could also be the war people often wage internally with their own selves.
For example, in “Theme from ‘Cheers,’” Stickles sings: “But while we’re young, boys, everybody raise your glasses high,/Singing, ‘Here’s to the good times, here’s to the home team./Kiss the good times goodbye, oh yeah,/Kiss the good times goodbye.’”
Throughout the song, which is the standout track on “The Monitor,” the narrator is clearly aware he’s not doing a service to himself by drinking, but as long as he’s young he may as well have fun. By the end of the song he’s begging for someone to give him a whiskey.
The song reeks of booze and cigarettes, but that’s what makes it so fun. Especially for old geezers like myself whose days of hanging out in taverns are long behind us.
By the end of the album, the band returns to New Jersey in a 12-minute epic titled “The Battle of Hampton Roads.” It’s a journey I’m glad I took, and one I highly recommend others to take.