Titus Andronicus

Following up a concept album that used the American Civil War in a contemporary framework and earned countless accolades sets a band up to deal with large expectations. New Jersey rockers Titus Andronicus realized this when they began making third album Local Business. They knew trying to do another imposing album like The Monitor would most likely kill them. So they chose to lighten the mood a bit, strip things down and capture what they do on stage in the studio by self-producing it live-off-the-floor. Songwriter/frontman Patrick Stickles can't avoid making statements and so Local Business is rife with them, contemplating such heavy topics as eating disorders and losing one's sanity with his winning brand of upliftingly tongue-in-cheek cynicism. Case in point is the drift from a quickie bar rock anthem like "Food Fight!" into "My Eating Disorder," an epic eight-minute proclamation by Stickles about his struggle with a condition called selective eating. If Titus Andronicus have become predictable for anything, it's in building these stirring anthems that elicit a feeling of catharsis from the listener (much like their fellow statesmen in the Misfits and E-Street Band). By giving their songs more directness, Local Business succeeds in what the band set out to do: present Titus Andronicus as a charged, dynamic live band.