Titus Andronicus, my pick for the best current rock band in America, released a new song Thursday. So, yes, it was worth getting up this morning. Not only that, but “Dimed Out” is our first listen to their new album, The Most Lamentable Tragedy, a 29-song, 93-minute rock opera.
Here’s how a press release describes the album, which includes covers of the Pogues and “Auld Lang Syne”:
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.
The song is messy and great, and you should be very excited. It’s been too long since the band’s last album, 2012’s Local Business.
