The Airing of Grievances (Bonus Track Version)

The first full-length from New Jersey’s Titus Andronicus is a like a good old-fashioned bar brawl: full of swagger and bravado, laced with youthful passion and untamed hubris ... a mad dervish of punches thrown, not all perfectly landed. Referencing numerous cultural icons (Shakespeare, Seinfeld, Camus and Brueghel being the most overt), this five-piece juggernaut rolls up its collective sleeve to wield its high-minded quill-pen, scrawling out something like poetic fisticuffs (such as, “no god of mine would put light in such unrighteous eyes!”), delivered with caterwauling guitars and vocalist Patrick Stickles’ rasping outrage.  A streetwise, blue-collar punk sensibility drives Stickles’ rants on the futility of love/life, as well as his musings on murderous nail clippers (in mother’s hands!) and  “gorgeous” hyphens in a vixen’s name. Don’t let the lo-fi, locker room mix deter you; you’ll find tracks like “Arms Against Atrophy” and “Titus Andronicus” are as explosive and bombastic as the band’s namesake (Titus Andronicus is an early Shakespeare work of gory excess), even without recording-studio perfection. Deservedly named one of Pitchfork’s 50 Best Albums of 2008.