Titus Andronicus

English

In July of 2005, the rock band Titus Andronicus made their first live appearance, performing for a few friends in an unfinished basement. The ensuing decade would see nearly 800 shows, 18 members, and the release of three full-length albums and 14 7-inches, as the group rose from their obscure beginnings in the tri-state DIY scene to the heights of international “indie stardom,” only to (nearly?) throw it all away in a vicious cycle of depression and decadence. The culmination of that ten-year journey is The Most Lamentable Tragedy.

The Most Lamentable Tragedy is the fourth studio album by Titus Andronicus and the band’s debut for Merge Records. A rock opera in five acts, it will see release on the 28th of July 2015. The central narrative of The Most Lamentable Tragedy (“a work of fiction,” Stickles says, looking away) concerns an unnamed protagonist whom we meet in the depths of his decrepit 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 very thing to destroy him.