Titus Andronicus are exactly the kind of band you want to be making concept records. Visual and visceral, the revolving New Jersey firebrand collective, led by Patrick Stickles, revel in kind of Shakespearean high drama and tragic, bloody themes from which their take their name. The band’s critically acclaimed 2010 effort, The Monitor, churned through 19th century mariner revelry and calamity, while their last, 2012’s Local Business, reigned in the abstraction while still stoking the blaze.
For their brand-new LP, The Most Lamentable Tragedy, Titus Andronicus make a significant move into the Merge catalog with a powerful pronouncement. From the press release:
The central narrative of TMLT (“a work of fiction,” claims singer/songwriter Patrick Stickles) concerns an unnamed protagonist whom we meet in deep despair. Following an encounter with his own doppelgänger (an enigmatic stranger, identical in appearance though opposite in disposition), long held secrets are revealed, sending our protagonist on a transformative odyssey, through past lives and new loves, to the shocking revelation that the very thing that sustains him may be the thing to destroy him.
Along with this announcement comes the record’s first single, “Dimed Out,” a string-complimented, passionately delivered anthem that has Stickles’s signature blood-letting proclamations emptied out in breathless measure.
Frequent band collaborator and producer Kevin McMahon co-produces, along with guitarist Adam Reich. Longtime members drummer Eric Harm, bassist Julian Veronesi, and keyboardist Elio Deluca also return, with the addition of Real Estate touring member Jonah Maurer on guitar and guest appearances by Owen Pallett and members of The So So Glos, Baked, Bad Credit No Credit, Lost Boy?, and many more.
The band will perform live in a five-night run at Brookyn’s Shea Stadium July 24–28.
The Most Lamentable Tragedy is available for pre-order now, and will be released July 28 on Merge.
