"The enemy is everywhere!"

I'm not sure what else I can say about Titus Andronicus' stellar album The Monitor that hasn't already been said. It's about the Civil War as much as it is about New Jersey as much as it's about disaffected youth. That is to say it is about a lot of BIG things. That is also to say it's gonna take a lot of listens before I can unpack it all.

But that's a beautiful thing, because it sounds about as big as the subject matter it covers. Not in an overblown way though, more like an out-of-breath way. There might as well not even be a track listing because every song just sort of ramshackle-y unravels, verse piled on verse, and spills into the next, but in the best possible way. It kind of sounds like a much punkier, more youthful version of The Hold Steady, with all the Springsteen worship to boot. (Check out the lyrics in epic opener "A More Perfect Union", "tramps like us, baby we were born to die!") In other words, it's the sound of something exciting looking forward and looking back.

A More Perfect Union - Titus Andronicus