Political Punk Rock That Protests Its Own Singer
For Titus Andronicus, one of the 21st century’s best rock acts, anger isn’t simple. The singer Patrick Stickles boasts a rabid-badger snarl, and his band’s ruckus is worthy of both humming along to and kicking walls to. But the songs turn and twist in surprising ways, and the singer undercuts his every rebellious slogan with confessions about his own complicity. A track off the band’s 2008 debut explained his backstory in typically self-flagellating fashion: “I learned to play the guitar in the seventh grade in order to convince everyone I was a renegade … I couldn’t fool anyone, I couldn’t even fool myself!”
Something feels different on Titus Andronicus’s sixth album, An Obelisk. The first song is a fierce denunciation of mediocrity, capitalism, and the state of the globe rendered in outward-looking, protest-ready manifesto statements. Stickles’s signature neuroses are still here, but they’re only winked at. “It’s a sorry situation, entire world’s going to hell,” he sings. “But I in no way blame myself.” Later, on the single “(I Blame) Society,” he howls, “I’m not sick, it’s the world that is.”
The singer, of course, doth protest too much. is a concept album sung from the point of view of a somewhat arrogant outcast on a journey toward self-awareness (he’s nicknamed Troubleman, a term soundtracked by Marvin Gaye). Its bracing, rambunctious songs scan as straightforward, but there’s nuance if you listen closely.
