Titus Andronicus
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The Prince Albert is the third pantheon of an axis of Brighton venues that strive to champion all that is positive, innovative, and exciting in alternative music. True, the sticky floors and posters promoting the latest Clash tour have been replaced by Sex Pistols posters mounted on backgrounds of hyacinth blue and Emily Todhunter designs in striking lemongrass. But the outside toilets still look and smell of a different era, and along with the Freebutt and Concorde2 is one of three places to see live music in Brighton before you die.
First up, Let’s Wrestle. “Shot through with witty, wonkily related tales of teenage ennui, thwarted romance and wise-beyond-their-years world weariness, Let's Wrestle traffic in the kind of rambunctious, infectious, gloriously untethered indie rock which calls to mind slacker forefathers such as Pavement, Dinosaur Jr and Built to Spill.” If only. Ascending the stairs with our Soundsxp/Let’s Wrestle guest-list badges pinned precariously to our credibility, the guy on the door amused himself with some perspicacious jousting. “So, good friend of Wesley’s are we?” “Er, course mate.” “Yeah, I think he mentioned you when he called.” “Er, really, well, we go back a long way.” “When he called to say two members of the band resigned last night and so they’ve split up.” “Errr…” Having sated his cruel sense of humour, he decided to let us in anyway, gently guffawing to himself as we mumbled thank you’s and greetings not quite loud enough for anyone to hear.
First up therefore turned out to be Twin Brother. They plodded through a largely forgettable set that was a mostly one paced and a little flat. The false start set the tone for the performance. To be fair, the opening and closing songs offered a degree of spark, where they worked up a sweat with some nice tweaks and twiddles from the lead guitar. It sounded a bit seventies rock, or portentous shoe-gazey. Star of the show was the drummer; hirsute, inscrutable and providing a lone hint of confidence and charisma whilst generating a crystal clear noise from his humble kit. And on occasion the singer offered some vocal dexterity. The rest of the band was as green as a gardener’s thumb, and the mammoth, miasmal presence of Titus Andronicus were eagerly anticipated long before the end of the set.
And so to the headliners, a band that named itself after a Shakespearian tragedy (a rollicking tale of mutilation, murder and cannibalism, no less). Song titles such as ‘Upon Viewing Brughel's “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”’ and ”Albert Camus” – not to mention the artful conscription of the American Civil War as metaphor for existential angst and dysfunctional relationships (on 2010’s The Monitor LP) – could give rise to the reasonable assumption that Titus Andronicus (TA) is staffed by bookish, floppy haired aesthetes. Any such notions disappear the moment big-bearded main-man, Patrick Stickles, ambles on stage sporting a fine line in Unabomber chic and proudly wearing his beered-up, blue-collar credentials on his (err) sleeve. (“I saw him downstairs,” says the somewhat bemused gentleman standing next to us. “I thought he was a tramp.”) Any remaining preconceptions are kicked squarely into touch when, after what feels like an age of knob twiddling and keyboard noodling, the New Jersey five-piece finally unleashes a quite breathtaking maelstrom of rock ‘n’ nihilism.
Stickles doesn’t so much sing as howl a diatribe against the sheer futility of life, seemingly fuelled by a bottomless well of rage, regret and self-loathing. There are obvious echoes of Paul Westerburg, The Clash and The Strokes in the TA ‘sound’, but it’s the unfettered energy, dark wit and shambolic genius of Shane MacGowan and The Pogues that is most resonant.
Repeated refrains figure big in Stickle’s songwriting. On the band’s rallying call, ‘Titus Andronicus’ he tells us again and again, “Your life is over …” On the beguilingly jaunty ‘Titus Andronicus Forever’ he reminds us that, “The enemy is everywhere” (don’t be surprised to hear this popping up on a tub-thumping Super Bowl lager ad sometime in the future). He whips himself into a frenzy on ‘No Future Part Three; Escape From No Future”, delivering the mantra, “You’ll always be a loser…”. On the epic (and overtly personal) ‘Battle of Hampton Roads’ he beseeches his ‘darling’, “Don’t ever leave…” over and over. It’s powerful stuff – the repetition leaving you pulverised and elated in equal measure.
The weird thing is, the whole shebang is so overblown, so theatrical, the last thing you want to do is go slit your wrists in the ‘skaggy’ toilets downstairs. Perversely, it’s totally life affirming. To a man and woman, the audience is grinning from ear to ear, caught up in the raw-edged punk blast of it all. Somewhat unnervingly, you can actually feel the floor joists flex, as the sell-out crowd pogos its way further and further into Stickles’ dystopian world. And it’s not just the crowd; guitarist Amy Klein looks perpetually ecstatic, enjoying what on the face of it appears to be a set-long orgasm as she bounces up and down on stage without pause.
Titus Andronicus are a revelation tonight. Their unholy racket, shot through with foul-mouthed, corrosive, intelligent observation, and leavened by a large dollop of urbane humour between songs, leaves us sated, shell-shocked, and still grinning like idiots as we eventually depart. My fellow Soundsxp scribe sums up the proceedings to a T: “Gig of the year!” Who’d have guessed Dystopia could be this much fun?
Written by Jonathan V and Alex S
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