Next Titus Andronicus Record To Be ’30 Song Rock Opera’

NJ indie punks Titus Andronicus seemingly love a challenge after announcing that their next album will be a 30 song rock opera and with an accompanying set of films inspired by singer/guitarist Patrick Stickles’ experiences with manic depression. It is tentatively due for release in November 2014 (pre orders are available on the bands website)

Stickles himself gave a plot synopsis (outlined below) to Missoulian via Pitchfork:

“Basically we meet a guy, a fella, and he’s a very depressed, sad guy, and he doesn’t have much hope about life,” Stickles said. The character went through some sort of trauma he doesn’t fully understand that left him less outgoing, less ambitious than he once was.

A “mysterious, shadowy” figure appears, a “doppelgänger of our hero,” who reveals that the main character used to be part of an ancient race of humans.

“This superhuman race has this curse upon it, and the reason that they’re able to do all these great things is the same reason that they ultimately are doomed to destroy themselves. They’re a self-destructive race that’s dispersed amongst the regular population,” he said.

And so the source of all his power is the same thing that put him in the “bad state” at the beginning of the story.

After a love interest enters his life, the hero has to decide whether to reveal his true nature, and whether he wants to live like a regular person.

“So that’s the question, what’s he going to do? Is he going to become a human, or live out his true destiny? The true destiny is more painful, you understand? But it’s got bigger rewards but there are consequences…it’s all a way of questioning, would you want to live your life in the middle … or would you accept the lows because they’re the price of the highs? Mostly it’s a metaphor for manic depression, is the thing,”

You can check out live footage of a new track called Fatal Flaw here