First Piece for the Temple News?

Titus Andronicus should be the biggest band in the world right now. They have the requisite critical praise and newfound status as college graduates that brought Vampire Weekend a heap of success just a few months ago. But, instead of Saturday Night Live, Titus Andronicus is still playing basements. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I saw them in one September 12 (Haverford College's Lunt Hall to be exact,) and it was nothing short of a spectacle. Like any basement show, it was cramped and people were sweaty but the music ascended to somewhere just over the treetops. Titus' schtick can be described as something like this: manic joy, dissent, anguish, neglect, and senseless debauchery fermented for as long as men have been put down by other men. That's just the lyrics. The guitars, drowning in distortion and reverb, often enter My Bloody Valentine/Galaxie 500 terrirtory and the keyboards shout Springsteen. If it weren't for the drums it'd be a huge, shoegazing mess. These are all good things, exectued flawlessly by five, often drunk, Jersey kids. But the show itself. It's hard to describe without staying focused on the crowd rather than the band because by the middle of every song, most of us found ourselves occupying the same space as Patrick Stickles and crew. They didn't mind, really. Band and audience were one for the better part of the show, screaming the same words about "laughter and loss" ("Joset of Nazareth Blues,") lack of a future ("No Future Pt. 1,") suburban existentialism ("Albert Camus,") and so on. It was beautiful, it was absurd, possibly more nihilistically-Nietzsche than what's-the-use-in-caring-Camus. Now that they're done their studies, they're touring relentlessly. Go see this band. Talk to them and please ask them for advice.