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The Airing of Grievances, the first album from Titus Andronicus, was a runaway train of a record — sprawling, ambitious, and indulgent — and it rocked. Album two, The Monitor (groovy ambiguity, it references a Civil War ironclad and the idea of an omniscient overseer) has all those qualities to an even greater extreme. Fortunately, it’s also better recorded, and songwriter-singer Patrick Stickles' voice is far enough forward in the mix that a lyric sheet at the ready isn’t a prerequisite to appreciation.

Titus Andronicus’s default setting is some mongrel amalgam of thrash-punk, Celtic-rock and Seventies “Classic” rock. The former two were probably part of their adolescent show diet (from Seven Seconds to Flogging Molly), the latter (especially the Boss and Thin Lizzy … Lizzy representing the Celtic and Classic rock genres) was probably blaring in the beery Bergen county joints they and/or their parents hung out in.

Titus Andronicus hails from Glen Rock, New Jersey. Yes, I can hear the Jersey Transit train conductor’s voice now — “Glen Rock, Glen Rock is the next stop.” Ah, Bergen County – a consumer paradise for commuters with its winding roads built on old Indian trails and beautiful homes. The only thing for a kid to be pissed off about is how Christ-awful boring it is for a teenager. No scene, no clubs, no college towns. And New York City — so close, yet so far away. It’s not the Jersey of Springsteen with its dusty beach roads and shuttered shops. Nope, even with the current recession it’s too relentlessly prosperous for that. Still, Springsteen haunts Titus Andronicus like Mary’s ghost haunted the boys on “Thunder Road.” His epic pretensions, yearning to break out/loose/free, and the logorrhea of his debut record Greeting from Asbury Park constantly inform Patrick Stickles’ vision.

Stickles quotes freely and often from his inspirations, lyrically and otherwise. He specializes in Paul Westerberg’s drunky self-loathing and sarcasm. In the film Repo Man, a dying Duke responds to Otto’s accusation that he’s “a white suburban punk just like me” by countering “Yeah, but it still hurts.” Patrick Stickles and the characters that populate his songs are the new punk embodiment of that scene and the Duke’s testimony.

Stickles posits connections between his and our (you know, America) socio-cultural predicament and the Civil War, quoting liberally from such figures as Honest Abe and the great gay pantheist poet Walt Whitman, It’s all pretty outrageous. I‘m sure his English teacher would have given him an A for imagination, but reduced his grade to a C for research and editing issues. Consider The Monitor (and Titus Andronicus generally) Stickles' revenge on teacher. With scatter-shot but mostly whip-smart images and allusions Stickles paints a picture of a soul dead America where tramps like us aren’t “born to run” but “born to die.” And you can be pretty sure that when he sings, “the enemy is everywhere” he’s probably talking to himself as much as anyone.

Stickles doesn’t write songs. Exactly. Oh, they have titles and track numbers. But his “songs” tend to be rambling, connected collections of ideas centering on a given theme. As often as not, this kind of shit drives me nuts. But Titus Andronicus stop on Stickle’s dime; these arrangements are anything but slapdash. And while they aren’t sonically distinctive, Titus Andronicus rock like a beast and bring Stickle’s crazy ideas to life.

Also on board for The Monitor are a host of friends (Craig Finn from Hold Steady is one) and associates who contribute everything from fiddle to brass instruments and Scottish small pipes (bagpipes, basically). Arrangements careen from raging rock to honky tonk, Elton John piano interludes to Civil War recitations. It’s totally bonkers, but it works.

Stickles compositions catalog the sufferings of youth. “No Future pt. 3 — Escape from No Future’s” ‘I took the one things that made me beautiful and threw it away’ and “A Pot in Which to Piss’s” ‘you never been no virgin kid / you were fucked from the start’ are representative sentiments. Those just scratch the surface. The Monitor is personal and generational self-analysis writ berserk.

Underneath all this despair rages a prickly intelligence and will to live — some other kind of life. Paraphrasing Dylan (as he does more than once), here from “Tom Thumb’s Blues,” he sings ‘I’m going back to New Jersey, I do believe I’ve seen enough’ and appeals to a beloved ‘please don’t ever leave’ repeatedly as “The Battle of Hampton Roads” fades into a dissolve of bagpipes, fiddle, mandolins, Frippertronic guitars, and “Sister Ray’ distortion. I promise, you won’t hear anything like it this (or any) year.

Alright, if Titus Andronicus makes too many more records like The Monitor we’ll have to shoot them. As extraordinary as this record is a career of such overload will wear even the devout fan out. But after all, those first two Springsteen records (Greetings from Asbury Park and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle) were joyously all over the place and Springsteen sang like he was paid by the word. By album number three he’d moved on to the hyper-crafted Born to Run. Don’t count Stickles out. One day he’ll channel all that talent and rage into the perfect three-minute song. Until then, let him ramble.

Reverberating: 8.7

Steve Wilson is the manager of Kief's Downtown Music and a lifelong musician and music writer. His weekly bundle of music reviews, Reverberations, will be appearing in KCFreePress each Tuesday.

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