Pitchfork have announced that Titus Andronicus highly anticipated third album, Local Business, will be released October 23rd on XL Records. Recorded this Spring, it was a shoo-in to be album of the year or at a minimum rock album of the year, till Spider Bags raised the stakes higher than humanly possible with Shake My Head.

I heard three of these tracks earlier this year when TA opened for Fucked Up at Le Poisson Rouge and thought Stickles and band hadn't missed a step, but listening to the video you will find at the bottom of this post, the two new  songs sound a little ordinary. I am big enough a fan to doubt my own ears, while haviing to wonder aloud, how can leader Patrick Stickles write a better album than The Monitor. It hardly seems  possible.

Of the six songs I've heard three appear to be masterpieces and three appear to be not masterpieces but not bad at all. "Ecco Homo" is a monochromatic raver. A two toned slither of sonic reduction. I've got no kick at all against it, but it isn't the Titus I've been dreaming off. It drives itself right off a cliff as it dazes itself into submission. "Still Life With Hot Deuce On Silver Platter" is better, though here the melody seems to be frothing just below the surface.

I've always felt Patrick might not grasp his genius, the man doesn't need a  genre to write a song, and as simply a songwriter, he is among a handful of greatest songwriters of his generation. He is a Taylor Swift. These two songs feel like punk rock genre exercises. And if they are, if that's how he has recorded them, I have no doubt they will be excellent punk rock…

Here is the Tracklist and the video with the two songs reviewed. 

01 Ecce Homo

02 Still Life With Hot Deuce and Silver Platter

03 Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With the Flood of Detritus

04 Food Fight!

05 My Eating Disorder

06 Titus Andronicus VS. the Absurd Universe (3rd Round KO)

07 In a Big City

08 In a Small Body

09 (I Am the) Electric Man

10 Tried to Quit Smoking