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Listening to The Monitor is like being shoved face-first into a musical blender, with large chunks of punk colliding with smaller fragments of horns, barroom piano, bombastic arena-ready group sing-alongs, strings, harmonicas and bagpipes. Whatever ambitious starting points its songs might have - Titus Andronicus frontman/howler Patrick Stickles describes the band's newest album as "sort of" a concept album about the Civil War - listeners shouldn't expect a song cycle about soldiers dying for nebulous causes or even South Carolinian thug Preston Brooks beating the abolitionist tar out of Charles Sumner. And that's for the best: The Monitor feels like a perfectly contemporary album that will remain relevant years from now. It is also, to borrow a term used on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, pretty fucking amazing.
To be fair, there are scattered Civil War references throughout the 65-minute album. Several songs begin or end with musicians reciting quotes from famous dead politicians and writers immortalized in very large and professorially serious volumes about the war; the cover art, album title and 14-minute closing track "The Battle of Hampton Roads" invoke the famous ironclad; lyrics speak of "blue trampling over gray," the "terrible swift sword," white flags, gurneys, stretchers, ships heading back into port and other implements of war. Hell, opening track "A More Perfect Union" manages to incorporate parts of at least three different 19th century wartime tunes. But there are also mentions of various things Jersey - the Newark Bears, Fung Wah Bus, Garden State Parkway and a nihilistic Springsteen revision of "tramps like us/ Baby we were born to die" - as well as clever lyrical borrowings of Elvis Costello, the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan ("I'm going back to New Jersey/ I do believe they've had enough of me"). Simply put, The Monitor might be inspired by America's bloodiest war, but its concerns are of the present time.
Throughout their debut The Airing of Grievances, Stickles raged like a sane man locked up in the basement of Ancora State Hospital. On The Monitor, his vocals are placed much higher in the mix, giving these songs the type of vocal clarity that was sometimes missing from Airing's murkier mix, without sacrificing any sense of urgency. There's still a ton of yelling and spitting - particularly in the revenge fantasy of "Richard II" and the vitriolic screed that punctuates "The Battle of Hampton Roads" - but there is also a range to Stickles' voice that the songs on Grievances only hinted at. He'll never be mistaken for a smooth crooner, but Stickles actually has an expressive, evocative voice, particularly on the slow-burn openings of "Four Score and Seven" and "To Old Friends and New." The songs' arrangements are likewise sprawling, whether it's in the two-minute claustrophobic outburst of "Titus Andronicus Forever," the sodden, sloppy honky-tonk of the appropriately boozy "Theme From 'Cheers,'" the rolling keyboards of "A Pot in Which to Piss," or the nearly-symphonic horns of "Four Score and Seven." Few albums have managed to incorporate so many different musical ideas this well; despite their lofty intentions, none of these songs ever sound bloated.
The Monitor plays like a pocket guide to existentialism without ever falling into the type of self-pity that makes emo so unbearable or the proselytizing that makes your garden variety punk band so exhausting. Coupled with the songs' furious arrangements, these sentiments are often cathartic as hell. There's death, frustration, rage - plenty of rage - thoughts of revenge ("There's only one dream that I keep close/ And it's the one of my hand at your throat") and a palpable anger that someone's been royally screwed over and isn't exactly happy with it. It's the same familiar territory as Grievances, but with a more finely-honed edge. A clear line is drawn in the sand; "it's still us against them/ And they're winning" Stickles screams at one point, repeating the line for anyone too attention-deficient to catch it the first or second time.
As on Grievances, there are also frequent bouts of self-loathing, small-town boredom, and sexual frustration - "a hand and a napkin/ When I'm looking for sex" Stickles laments at one point - which are only temporarily dulled, usually by booze or cigarettes or watching sitcoms in the basement with equally miserable friends. The album's fatalism can sometimes come on a bit thick, with a few clunky lyrics to match, but most of the time it works. Life as depicted on The Monitor may be absurd and pointless, but no one from Titus Andronicus is waving the white flag or ready to let the bastards win just yet. They'd much rather cling to their righteous pissed-off defiance and beat their instruments into submission, even if all they can ultimately do at the endgame is "urinate into the void."
Showing posts with label Titus Andronicus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Titus Andronicus. Show all posts
Monday, March 08, 2010
Monday, November 23, 2009
Real Estate: Real Estate
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Patience is a virtue, and listeners will likely need plenty of it throughout Real Estate's self-titled full-length. It's not that the album is overly long; at just 10 songs and right around 40 minutes, it's not particularly over-indulgent or tediously meandering. It's not that the album is awful or directionless either: clearly the New Jersey band knew what type of sound they were going for throughout the record. Nearly every song consists of opening and closing instrumental sections of varying lengths, fluid guitar lines from Matt Mondanile and the echoed and mostly buried vocals of Martin Courtney.
Only one small problem: the band repeats that formula for the entire album with the type of narrow-minded determination usually reserved for zealots and psychopaths. Individual songs mostly work by themselves, but when evaluated in an album context, this release quickly becomes monotonous and repetitive. To be sure, Real Estate has its moments - "Black Lake" is the album's standout track, its languid pace and distant vocals undeniably evocative and mysterious - but mostly the album crumbles under the weight of its own predictability. The album's charm doesn't last for long: "Fake Blues," "Green River," "Let's Rock the Beach" and "Suburban Beverage" are all built from a remarkably similar template, as each begins with an instrumental lead-in before giving way to various guitar/bass/drum patterns and Courtney's frequently hazy vocals.
Most of the tracks on Real Estate unfold gradually, with no peaks or valleys or moments of tension or resolution. Quite simply its parts are greater than the whole; on their own, songs like "Snow Days" and "Suburban Dogs" offer carefully crafted arrangements and ghostly vocals that sometimes sound like they were recorded underwater. That these songs offer various moods, tones and textures is undeniable. Yet there is just not enough variation to complement these songs' ethereal and nostalgic qualities, and eventually the album collectively becomes fairly ponderous and plodding. Courtney's vocals, buried in the mix to varying degrees, are essentially treated as another instrument, a trick that likewise works for a while before feeling a bit played out.
Of course, we're living in a digital music age where a solid song or two can be isolated from an album and added to a listener's iPod playlist, with those songs sounding all the better for it. Still, Real Estate likely isn't meant to be a collection of singles. There's a logic and consistency to its songs - not to mention plenty of references to beaches, water, lakes, seasons and suburbia - that musically and thematically link its tracks. Yet there are landmines with such a defined scope, and if you're a band that locks into a specific formula, the arrangements and vocals sure as hell better have enough wrinkles to remain interesting and unconventional. All too often such variations are missing from Real Estate, the result being an album whose deliberate pace and mostly uniform sound eventually overstay their welcome.
Patience is a virtue, and listeners will likely need plenty of it throughout Real Estate's self-titled full-length. It's not that the album is overly long; at just 10 songs and right around 40 minutes, it's not particularly over-indulgent or tediously meandering. It's not that the album is awful or directionless either: clearly the New Jersey band knew what type of sound they were going for throughout the record. Nearly every song consists of opening and closing instrumental sections of varying lengths, fluid guitar lines from Matt Mondanile and the echoed and mostly buried vocals of Martin Courtney.
Only one small problem: the band repeats that formula for the entire album with the type of narrow-minded determination usually reserved for zealots and psychopaths. Individual songs mostly work by themselves, but when evaluated in an album context, this release quickly becomes monotonous and repetitive. To be sure, Real Estate has its moments - "Black Lake" is the album's standout track, its languid pace and distant vocals undeniably evocative and mysterious - but mostly the album crumbles under the weight of its own predictability. The album's charm doesn't last for long: "Fake Blues," "Green River," "Let's Rock the Beach" and "Suburban Beverage" are all built from a remarkably similar template, as each begins with an instrumental lead-in before giving way to various guitar/bass/drum patterns and Courtney's frequently hazy vocals.
Most of the tracks on Real Estate unfold gradually, with no peaks or valleys or moments of tension or resolution. Quite simply its parts are greater than the whole; on their own, songs like "Snow Days" and "Suburban Dogs" offer carefully crafted arrangements and ghostly vocals that sometimes sound like they were recorded underwater. That these songs offer various moods, tones and textures is undeniable. Yet there is just not enough variation to complement these songs' ethereal and nostalgic qualities, and eventually the album collectively becomes fairly ponderous and plodding. Courtney's vocals, buried in the mix to varying degrees, are essentially treated as another instrument, a trick that likewise works for a while before feeling a bit played out.
Of course, we're living in a digital music age where a solid song or two can be isolated from an album and added to a listener's iPod playlist, with those songs sounding all the better for it. Still, Real Estate likely isn't meant to be a collection of singles. There's a logic and consistency to its songs - not to mention plenty of references to beaches, water, lakes, seasons and suburbia - that musically and thematically link its tracks. Yet there are landmines with such a defined scope, and if you're a band that locks into a specific formula, the arrangements and vocals sure as hell better have enough wrinkles to remain interesting and unconventional. All too often such variations are missing from Real Estate, the result being an album whose deliberate pace and mostly uniform sound eventually overstay their welcome.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Concert Review: Lucero/Titus Andronicus
Off Broadway, St. Louis, MO, 4/9/09
Go to spectrumculture.com
It's all fun and games until two chicks get into a fight and even the band onstage comments about it. Such was the atmosphere as Lucero slogged through their headlining set at Off Broadway on a rainy Thursday night in St. Louis. Playing to a capacity crowd that consisted of an odd mix of obvious Lucero fans (trucker hats on heads and Pabst Blue Ribbon tall boys clutched to hands) and indie kids looking like drowned hoody-wearing rats, the band definitely delighted its hardcore contingent of dedicated fans, cat fights be damned.
Yet the veteran band was completely upstaged by opening act Titus Andronicus, a band that hails from Glen Rock, New Jersey and has been receiving a borderline-psychotic amount of critical praise for their debut album The Airing Of Grievances. Playing St. Louis for the second time in just a few months (the band opened for Los Campesinos! in February), the band tore through most of the album in a manically aggressive and wonderfully ear-numbing 40-minute set. Though Grievances is far from polished - its lo-fi production at times recalls bands like Galaxie 500 and Neutral Milk Hotel - it does contain catchy and insistent melodies amid all the fracas and righteous outrage. The band's performance went one step further, bludgeoning any hints of subtlety with a few guitars, drums, keyboards and an occasional harmonica.
Several songs featured keyboards more prominently than their album counterparts from Grievances. This approach started with opening song "Upon Viewing Brueghel's 'Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus'" and was repeated on both "My Time Outside The Womb" and "Joset Of Nazareth's Blues," with lead vocalist Patrick Stickles a bundle of twitches and spasms as he pounded away on his keyboards or guitar. Other songs were built around more pronounced backing vocals, especially on "No Future Part Two: The Days After No Future," where Stickles' vocals approximated something between howling and barking. The band closed with album opener "Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ," its few lines of lyrics seemingly spat out quickly so that the band could explode one more time. But enough of these dry bullshit technical details; simply put, the band must be seen live to be truly appreciated. On this particular night Titus Andronicus alternated between moments of bottled-up tension and release that the album approximates, especially on "No Future." It was an unpredictable mixture of seemingly choreographed moments - some well-timed jumps and guitar-faces-of-pain on both "Titus Andronicus" and "Titus Andronicus Forever," for example - and moments where it looked like the band could go off the rails at any point. It was a tightrope walk between sloppiness and precision from a band whose live show here was like a jack-booted kick upside the head. And that's a good thing.
After a brief break Lucero took the stage, still looking like the motley collection of tattooed badasses you've either been warned about or aspire to become. From the onset it was obvious the vibe had changed; whereas Titus Andronicus was likely largely unknown to at least some of those in attendance and played accordingly, Lucero essentially acted as the master of ceremonies for a massive community sing-along. The band and its blend of punk-country has always inspired a fanatical (wait...dedicated) following, so perhaps this was to be expected. All the trademarks of the standard Lucero show were present: raised and pumping fists, Ben Nichols' countrified and scratchy-voiced drawl, tons of requests from the audience, at least one intoxicated moron repeatedly muscling people out of his way in the pit, and big fat anthemic guitar riffs. Still the band's set lacked passion and energy, with the exception of the pre-fight entertainment of "Nights Like These" and a driving version of "Sixteen." The band as a whole remained largely stationary for most of the night, which made them seem even more sedate after Titus Andronicus' furious performance. Though the jacked-up crowd clearly enjoyed itself, too often it felt like Lucero was simply preaching to the converted, where both audience and musicians were simply going through the motions of what they are each expected to do in such an environment.
Certainly the lousy sound didn't help Lucero's case either. Though the mix was far from perfect for Titus Andronicus, it still fit the band's aesthetic and the lyrics were about as intelligible as they are on Grievances. Take that for what it's worth. Nichols' vocals remained buried in the murk for much of the night, a disappointment since much of what makes albums like Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers and Tennessee worthwhile are the singer's ragged yet emotive vocals. If you didn't know the words going in, you sure as hell weren't going to learn them now. The cult of Lucero likely went home happy, but for those who don't quite get what the fuss and singular dedication from fans is all about, it's doubtful that this performance convinced them.
Lucero always bring a workmanlike professionalism to their shows; they've been touring relentlessly for years and know the ropes. Yet sometimes such an approach is overshadowed by a band that's rough around the edges and isn't note-perfect. Lucero's legion of fans may have had an enjoyable time Thursday night, but Titus Andronicus delivered a performance that showed why so many music fans and critics are going batshit crazy for them.
Go to spectrumculture.com
It's all fun and games until two chicks get into a fight and even the band onstage comments about it. Such was the atmosphere as Lucero slogged through their headlining set at Off Broadway on a rainy Thursday night in St. Louis. Playing to a capacity crowd that consisted of an odd mix of obvious Lucero fans (trucker hats on heads and Pabst Blue Ribbon tall boys clutched to hands) and indie kids looking like drowned hoody-wearing rats, the band definitely delighted its hardcore contingent of dedicated fans, cat fights be damned.
Yet the veteran band was completely upstaged by opening act Titus Andronicus, a band that hails from Glen Rock, New Jersey and has been receiving a borderline-psychotic amount of critical praise for their debut album The Airing Of Grievances. Playing St. Louis for the second time in just a few months (the band opened for Los Campesinos! in February), the band tore through most of the album in a manically aggressive and wonderfully ear-numbing 40-minute set. Though Grievances is far from polished - its lo-fi production at times recalls bands like Galaxie 500 and Neutral Milk Hotel - it does contain catchy and insistent melodies amid all the fracas and righteous outrage. The band's performance went one step further, bludgeoning any hints of subtlety with a few guitars, drums, keyboards and an occasional harmonica.
Several songs featured keyboards more prominently than their album counterparts from Grievances. This approach started with opening song "Upon Viewing Brueghel's 'Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus'" and was repeated on both "My Time Outside The Womb" and "Joset Of Nazareth's Blues," with lead vocalist Patrick Stickles a bundle of twitches and spasms as he pounded away on his keyboards or guitar. Other songs were built around more pronounced backing vocals, especially on "No Future Part Two: The Days After No Future," where Stickles' vocals approximated something between howling and barking. The band closed with album opener "Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ," its few lines of lyrics seemingly spat out quickly so that the band could explode one more time. But enough of these dry bullshit technical details; simply put, the band must be seen live to be truly appreciated. On this particular night Titus Andronicus alternated between moments of bottled-up tension and release that the album approximates, especially on "No Future." It was an unpredictable mixture of seemingly choreographed moments - some well-timed jumps and guitar-faces-of-pain on both "Titus Andronicus" and "Titus Andronicus Forever," for example - and moments where it looked like the band could go off the rails at any point. It was a tightrope walk between sloppiness and precision from a band whose live show here was like a jack-booted kick upside the head. And that's a good thing.
After a brief break Lucero took the stage, still looking like the motley collection of tattooed badasses you've either been warned about or aspire to become. From the onset it was obvious the vibe had changed; whereas Titus Andronicus was likely largely unknown to at least some of those in attendance and played accordingly, Lucero essentially acted as the master of ceremonies for a massive community sing-along. The band and its blend of punk-country has always inspired a fanatical (wait...dedicated) following, so perhaps this was to be expected. All the trademarks of the standard Lucero show were present: raised and pumping fists, Ben Nichols' countrified and scratchy-voiced drawl, tons of requests from the audience, at least one intoxicated moron repeatedly muscling people out of his way in the pit, and big fat anthemic guitar riffs. Still the band's set lacked passion and energy, with the exception of the pre-fight entertainment of "Nights Like These" and a driving version of "Sixteen." The band as a whole remained largely stationary for most of the night, which made them seem even more sedate after Titus Andronicus' furious performance. Though the jacked-up crowd clearly enjoyed itself, too often it felt like Lucero was simply preaching to the converted, where both audience and musicians were simply going through the motions of what they are each expected to do in such an environment.
Certainly the lousy sound didn't help Lucero's case either. Though the mix was far from perfect for Titus Andronicus, it still fit the band's aesthetic and the lyrics were about as intelligible as they are on Grievances. Take that for what it's worth. Nichols' vocals remained buried in the murk for much of the night, a disappointment since much of what makes albums like Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers and Tennessee worthwhile are the singer's ragged yet emotive vocals. If you didn't know the words going in, you sure as hell weren't going to learn them now. The cult of Lucero likely went home happy, but for those who don't quite get what the fuss and singular dedication from fans is all about, it's doubtful that this performance convinced them.
Lucero always bring a workmanlike professionalism to their shows; they've been touring relentlessly for years and know the ropes. Yet sometimes such an approach is overshadowed by a band that's rough around the edges and isn't note-perfect. Lucero's legion of fans may have had an enjoyable time Thursday night, but Titus Andronicus delivered a performance that showed why so many music fans and critics are going batshit crazy for them.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances
Originally published at spectrumculture.com. Go to that site. Now dammit.
Taking their name from one of Shakespeare's bloodiest plays -not from a porno queen - Titus Andronicus' debut effort The Airing of Grievances was an unrelenting and pounding album that played like repeated jack-booted kicks upside the head. Upon its original release on the Troubleman Unlimited label in 2008, it received effusive praise from a decent number of fans and critics. Violent, nihilistic, and exceedingly bleak, it was one of the year's most austere and uncompromising albums. With cultural references ranging from their hometown of Glen Rock, New Jersey to Albert Camus, Greek mythology, and Flemish painters, as well as containing enough existential dread to rival Ian Curtis, it was one of the year's most viscerally jarring albums. Now remastered (bullshit unless you have ears with the sensitivity of a bat, but no matter) and reissued by XL Recordings, indie music fans or those woefully angst-ridden suburban kids who are not yet familiar with the album have another chance to discover it.
Though the vocal traits of lead singer Patrick Stickles have been compared to Conor Oberst, to my ears he sounds closer to a more riled up cross between Paul Westerberg and David Yow. The vocals throughout Airing are tinny, muddy and occasionally indecipherable, with Stickles variously screaming, shouting and yelping above the band's manic playing. The lyrics are extraordinarily dark, often vacillating between moments of righteous anger, fuck-it-all boredom and morose brooding about mortality.
Opening track "Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ" references Hunter S. Thompson's well-known novel as Stickles lobs his first grenade of the album: "Should the shit hit the fan, I just pray you will not be spared." On other songs Stickles sounds completely resigned and tired beyond his years. This monotony is acknowledged in the almost-melodramatic "No Future Part 1," with Stickles commenting that "I know that I say this every night/ But I don't think I've ever been so tired of life." And if this emo sentiment somehow escapes the listener's notice, Stickles drives the point home later in the song, cheerfully saying that, "This world seems like a nice place to visit/ But I don't want to live in it." On Airing such boredom strolls hand-in-hand with mordant comments about the meaningless of life.
The song's arrangements prevent these lyrics from reading like the overwrought work of a freshman Intro to Philosophy student who doesn't realize how miserable he is until Camus tells him so. Many songs begin deceptively quiet and almost acoustic in nature, but eventually dissolve into something far more sinister and jagged. The album begins with a simple guitar, before the gates are blown open and the song is swallowed up by swirling pianos and horns. This pattern is repeated often: "Joset of Nazareth's Blues" begins with a harmonica line reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen, but is soon jackknifed by Stickles' strained vocals, while "No Future Part 1" starts with an atmospheric rhythm that is eventually suffocated by the band's frantic sound. The arrangements are varied and expansive, evocative of many disparate musical trends without being derivative .
The band's home state of New Jersey is referenced several times and is used to accentuate the album's agitated and claustrophobic tone. Or, more accurately, the blue-collar, hardscrabble, industrial shithole image of the state that's been depicted in everything from the poetry of William Carlos Williams to the music of Springsteen to every "Cops" episode that seems to take place on the dingiest streets of Passaic. As listeners we'd probably be having a hardy, cynical indie laugh if these songs were written by a bunch of Abercrombie-clad rebels from Bel-Air. But with New Jersey as the backdrop - especially in lyrics that reminisce back to childhood, presumably before things got even more horribly derailed - the album's utter desolation is entirely believable.
The Airing of Grievances deals heavily in the dark stuff. Even its few instances of humor are meant to be taken with a mournful shrug, not a wry smile. Of course, the fatalistic ethos that runs through many of its songs isn't anything new in music. Where the album ultimately succeeds, and what makes it so compelling, is in its ability to convey this ethos without sounding laughably over-dramatic.
by Eric Whelchel
Taking their name from one of Shakespeare's bloodiest plays -not from a porno queen - Titus Andronicus' debut effort The Airing of Grievances was an unrelenting and pounding album that played like repeated jack-booted kicks upside the head. Upon its original release on the Troubleman Unlimited label in 2008, it received effusive praise from a decent number of fans and critics. Violent, nihilistic, and exceedingly bleak, it was one of the year's most austere and uncompromising albums. With cultural references ranging from their hometown of Glen Rock, New Jersey to Albert Camus, Greek mythology, and Flemish painters, as well as containing enough existential dread to rival Ian Curtis, it was one of the year's most viscerally jarring albums. Now remastered (bullshit unless you have ears with the sensitivity of a bat, but no matter) and reissued by XL Recordings, indie music fans or those woefully angst-ridden suburban kids who are not yet familiar with the album have another chance to discover it.
Though the vocal traits of lead singer Patrick Stickles have been compared to Conor Oberst, to my ears he sounds closer to a more riled up cross between Paul Westerberg and David Yow. The vocals throughout Airing are tinny, muddy and occasionally indecipherable, with Stickles variously screaming, shouting and yelping above the band's manic playing. The lyrics are extraordinarily dark, often vacillating between moments of righteous anger, fuck-it-all boredom and morose brooding about mortality.
Opening track "Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ" references Hunter S. Thompson's well-known novel as Stickles lobs his first grenade of the album: "Should the shit hit the fan, I just pray you will not be spared." On other songs Stickles sounds completely resigned and tired beyond his years. This monotony is acknowledged in the almost-melodramatic "No Future Part 1," with Stickles commenting that "I know that I say this every night/ But I don't think I've ever been so tired of life." And if this emo sentiment somehow escapes the listener's notice, Stickles drives the point home later in the song, cheerfully saying that, "This world seems like a nice place to visit/ But I don't want to live in it." On Airing such boredom strolls hand-in-hand with mordant comments about the meaningless of life.
The song's arrangements prevent these lyrics from reading like the overwrought work of a freshman Intro to Philosophy student who doesn't realize how miserable he is until Camus tells him so. Many songs begin deceptively quiet and almost acoustic in nature, but eventually dissolve into something far more sinister and jagged. The album begins with a simple guitar, before the gates are blown open and the song is swallowed up by swirling pianos and horns. This pattern is repeated often: "Joset of Nazareth's Blues" begins with a harmonica line reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen, but is soon jackknifed by Stickles' strained vocals, while "No Future Part 1" starts with an atmospheric rhythm that is eventually suffocated by the band's frantic sound. The arrangements are varied and expansive, evocative of many disparate musical trends without being derivative .
The band's home state of New Jersey is referenced several times and is used to accentuate the album's agitated and claustrophobic tone. Or, more accurately, the blue-collar, hardscrabble, industrial shithole image of the state that's been depicted in everything from the poetry of William Carlos Williams to the music of Springsteen to every "Cops" episode that seems to take place on the dingiest streets of Passaic. As listeners we'd probably be having a hardy, cynical indie laugh if these songs were written by a bunch of Abercrombie-clad rebels from Bel-Air. But with New Jersey as the backdrop - especially in lyrics that reminisce back to childhood, presumably before things got even more horribly derailed - the album's utter desolation is entirely believable.
The Airing of Grievances deals heavily in the dark stuff. Even its few instances of humor are meant to be taken with a mournful shrug, not a wry smile. Of course, the fatalistic ethos that runs through many of its songs isn't anything new in music. Where the album ultimately succeeds, and what makes it so compelling, is in its ability to convey this ethos without sounding laughably over-dramatic.
by Eric Whelchel
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