@ Hoxton Square Bar + Kitchen, London, 23 February 2009
Titus Andronicus
Hello darkness my old friend. Hello sadness my old mucker. Hello getting my testicles
repeatedly slammed in the door of life, my old brother from another mother.
Hello Titus Andronicus. Who aren't flush with the joys of Spring. In fact, they're more holed-up
in the depths of wintery discontent, with a mangy dog, three bits of damp firewood and a
half-eaten Pot Noodle for company.
But it's a pit of despair which has made a pretty canny album (The Airing Of Grievances) and now
also made for a pretty canny live show. Particularly as, despite the music coming off like a
window shattering cathartic outpouring for mega depressed shut-ins, they seem quite nice
unassuming fellas. Slightly distant, slightly overwhelmed by this standing in a nihilistic
post-modern bunker in darkest Hoxton while people gawk at you lark, but nice nonetheless.
A female companion of mine described them after the show as 'very male'. Which may be true; there
is something wholly masculine about approaching heartbreak and loss by hitting things very hard
and screaming very loud. But when Titus Andronicus hit things very hard, and scream very loud,
they're really very good.
Encapsulated in the closing two songs. Both Titus Andronicus (the self-titled song, rather than
the band) and a raucous Fear And Loathing In Mawah, NJ manage to adopt this
wonderfully unsteady, time at the bar swing, which achieves something very reminiscent of The
Pogues: appearing really sloppy and couldn't-care-less, while actually playing in an incredibly
tight and constructed way.
But there is more here than alcohol stained laments. They introduce a new song from their as yet
unrecorded second album as being "about the American civil war", which hints after a desire to be
a bit more cerebral in their output - a sort of iLiKETRAiNS who really like bashing stuff - and
throughout the whole performance these odd little flashes of blue collar Bruce Springsteenian imagery
keeps flashing through.
Things about 'girls called Mary sittin' in cars, racing towards amber streetlights', and
the like. Which helps give proceedings a dose of grittiness and realism that help wash away any
woe-is-me self pitying which might otherwise annoy. Of course it is worth mentioning that the
flash becomes more of a burning glare that you shouldn't stare at for more than a second when
they play Joset Of Nazareth's Blues. Which, shall we say, borrows liberally from The Promised
Land by their fellow New Jersey native.
But even if you aren't down-and-out and overcome with a desire to drink whisky until you can't
lie on the floor without crampons, Titus Andronicus make you wish you were. Which is probably the
best backhanded compliment you can pay them.
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