It’s been three decades since Zen Arcade, and four since Quadrophenia. About the same amount of time has passed since Springsteen took his last-chance power drive. Those were different times, when “Born to Run” was a radio staple and Thin Lizzy a household name, when the Replacements were still just a bunch of kids listening to Big Star.
Fast forward to 2015. Titus Andronicus releases The Most Lamentable Tragedy, an album that’s as much a sequel to rock music in 1975 as it is a display of rock’s pervasive vitality. It’s an album of anachronistic stadium-friendly growls, and walls of sound erupting with spry energy mixed in with bits and pieces of a purists’ “blasphemy.” It’s an album strung together by a successor to Quadrophenia’s manic mod, a five-part epic of Shakespearean psychosis and loud guitars.
For those of us who grew up on FM radio classics, there’s familiarity to TMLT. Tandem guitars spring punchy leads, while an orchestra of guitars and pianos blow lighter moments into E Street heights. A wall of sound roars behind its anthems, while Thin Lizzy and 1980s power pop mix with Hüsker Dü sprints and Westerberg slurs.
But TMLT’s fire comes from somewhere beyond the bursts of bar-rock heroics, beyond the marathons of guitar solos and power chords. TMLT shines in its mental breakdowns, when Titus Andronicus’ frontman Patrick Stickles drifts from manic rockers to piano ballads and Celtic dirges. It shines in its anti-climaxes, like “More Perfect Union,” where Titus Andronicus marches to an Irish funeral, and “Stable Boy,” where a rasping accordion churns Stickles’ depression into a somber finale. These are the moments that TMLT’s narrative comes crashing down on its singer, the moments when rock escapism breaks into depressing reality.