Saying Titus Andronicus singer Patrick Stickles bears a resemblance to Conor Oberst is akin to saying Owl City sounds faintly like the Postal Service. Stickles’ throaty quiver is the mirror image of Oberst’s, indistinguishable in both timbre and cadence. The only real difference between the two is temporal: While Oberst’s roar has tamed over the years, Stickles taps the singer’s youthful fury, which makes his recordings with Titus Andronicus sound like lost, early century outtakes from Bright Eyes (if not Oberst’s punkier, 2001 side project Desaparecidos).That’s not to accuse Titus Andronicus of complete plagiarism, though. The group has ambitions of their own—mostly of the Hold Steady, E Street revivalism variety—and it’s hard to blame them for capitalizing on the demand for loud, emotional music that Oberst years ago stopped filling.
A whimsically overstuffed concept album juxtaposing Civil War-ravaged colonies or modern New Jersey, with ample references to Shakespeare and Lincoln, the group’s sophomore album The Monitor plays like it was written with live performances in mind, prioritizing fist-pumping rally cries designed to make fans rush the stage to sing along. There are quieter surprises hidden throughout the album, too—plenty of small, Elephant 6-styled tangents, as well as a clever, Pogues-styled ballad with Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner—but they exist largely for contrast, mainly to make the rowdy moments that much rowdier.
The Monitor is, in equal measure, rousing and numbing. By the 14-minute closer “The Battle of Hampton Roads,” the fifth soused epic on the album to break the seven-minute mark, sheer repetition has eroded much of the record’s early charm. Yet even that song ends reluctantly, with squalls of noise fighting to delay the inevitable fadeout. Listeners may have checked out well before that point, but the band sounds like they still have another 30 or 40 minutes in them.
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I just heard this album today, and browsed around for reviews online. This absolutely mirrors how I feel about The Monitor. You have summed it up perfectly in a rather short review and you definitely know what you are talking about. I have found a lot of articles that mention the vocal similarity to Conor Oberst, but nearly everyone is saying he sounds like an adgitated Oberst, or Oberst screaming from hell. He indeed sounds like a younger Oberst, who is not the whiny, morose generalization but at least once sounded very very much like this, especially with desperacidos. The monitor sounds like a desperacidos album (the only one released has intros and outros of recorded speech). But anyway, you touched on what I was looking for someone to mention. It's almost shameless how much this guy (Patrick Stickles) sings like Conor Oberst.