The Witzard

Titus Andronicus (ILLUSTRATION: Nicole Rifkin) Esteemed East Coast Rock titans Titus Andronicus have announced the long-awaited release of their seventh studio album, The Will to Live, out via Merge Records this September. It was produced by Titus Andronicus singer-songwriter Patrick Stickles and award-winning Canadian producer Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Godspeed You! Black Emperor) at the latter's Hotel2Tango Recording Studio in Montreal, The Will to Live is heralded by today's premiere of the stirring first single, "(I'm) Screwed," listen now at all streaming services. An official music video from director Ray Concepcion—which finds the band performing on a flatbed truck during The Independence Day Parade in the band's hometown of Glen Rock, New Jersey. Stickles elaborates, "in "(I'm) Screwed," we are introduced to the narrator of The Will to Live at the moment he realizes the walls are closing in. Be it real or ...

It's been widely reported this past Friday's 24-hour Bandcamp Friday festivities garnered $7.1 million, all of which went directly to the artists waiving the company's own revenue shares. Yesterday, we ran a feature on a collection of our favorite beat tapes released on or around Bandcamp Friday and today, we're going to do something similar, but with mixtapes. Now, these aren't exactly your typical rapper, producer, or DJ-orchestrated mixtapes... these are uniquely non-Hip-Hop "mixtapes" orchestrated and released by a few of our favorite Punk/Hardcore bands, DOPE BODY, F*CKED UP, and Titus Andronicus. For Bandcamp Friday, a newly-reunited DOPE BODY released an album/mixtape called Home Body, F*CKED UP issued their MIXTAPE 6, and Titus Andronicus uploaded Sorry About The Delay: Titus Andronicus LLC Mixtape, Volume 2A, A Reductive Scoff: Titus Andronicus LLC Mixtape, Volume III, and Broken Down In Morgantown: Titus Andronicus LLC Mixtape, Volume 4 (An Aste...

Earlier this morning, Titus Andronicus posted a rather cryptic video on their band YouTube page simply entitled "TITUS ANDRONICUS - 2020 TEASER." It came packaged along with this block of text within the Description section: "On March 9th 2010, Titus Andronicus released their landmark album The Monitor . On March 9th 2020, Titus Andronicus released this cryptic video. What does it mean? Stay tuned to find out..." along with the cryptic hashtag #MON1T0R . The monitor was, of course, Titus Andronicus' sophomore album and follow-up to Seinfeld-referencing The Airing of The Grievances . It included soaring contributions from frontman Patrick Stickles and a who's-who of 2010 Indie Rock musicians, family, and friends, including Brett Bondar , Ian Graetzer, David Bentley , Eric Harm, Greg Farley (Conor Oberst,) Andrew Cedermark, Dustin Wong (Ponytail,) Pete Feigenbaum, Kevin McMahon (Diarrhea Planet,) Ian O'Neil (Deer Tick,) Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak,) Li...

Aside from his duties in F*CKED UP , Jonah Falco has stayed busy as of late, mixing/playing drums on GAME 's full-length debut, NO ONE WINS , producing Chubby & The Gang 's "All Along The Uxbridge Road" 7-inch and raucous 2020 album, Speed Kills , mixing and recording Scrap Brain 's A Journey Into Madness , and, most recently, mixing S.H.I.T. 's two one-off singles, "HIDDEN IN ETERNITY" & "ERASER III." It was very recently revealed that Falco is, also, behind mysterious Alternative/Dream Pop group, Jade Hairpins . Along with fellow F*CKED UP bandmate, Mike Haliechuk , Jonah Falco quietly released a 7-inch entitled "Mother Man" B/​W "Gracefully" on the exact same day as F*CKED UP 's 2018 album, Dose Your Dreams . Jonah Falco & Mike Haliechuk recently played a string of live shows Overseas following their official "coming out" as Jade Hairpins , along with a digital re-release of their 201...

Jade Hairpins quietly released a 12-inch/digital single on Merge Records back in October 2018 consisting of two 7+ minute-long tracks, "Mother Man" & "Gracefully." Discogs list their Genre/Style as Electronic, Rock, Pop, Synth-Pop, and Indie Rock and Jade Hairpins themselves label their genre as "Alternative" on Bandcamp. I'm, personally, reminded a bit of the bleeps and blips of The Bravery, The Cure, Four Tet, LCD Soundsystem, and New Order. Seemingly, out of nowhere, Monday afternoon, Merge Records (@mergerecords) mysteriously Tweeted , "~ t o m o r r o w ~," along with a 9-second video and a glowing Jade Hairpins logo. As promised, the following day, Tuesday, February 4, 2020, @mergerecords Tweeted, "Hhhhhaayyyyyeeeeelllllloooo! Back in 2018, Jade Hairpins emerged mysteriously like a pair of cranes from a tall grove, shared their immediately danceable debut 12-inch single, "Mother Man" B/W "Gracefully,...

Home Alone on Halloween by Titus Andronicus Alright, ladies & germs - now, first and foremost, I don't generally post press statements in full, but this one was, honestly, just too good to pass up: "With Home Alone on Halloween , noted Rock band Titus Andronicus celebrate the spookiest of the seasons by staring into the abyss and confronting the bone-chilling terror, which lies at the haunted heart of our human experience. Bearing the justly feared catalog number "MRG666," the 12-inch EP spans 31 minutes and features three tracks recorded concurrently with the group's most recent full-length, A Productive Cough , offering an Autumnal tableau of dread and decay to complement its LP companion's Springtime visions of re-birth and new possibilities." Essentially, beloved Brooklyn -based Alternative/Hardcore/Punk/Folk quintet, Titus Andronicus (or +@ for short) have returned with their latest seasonally-appropriate offering titled Home Alone On ...

"'The Magic Morning" was written and directed by +@uteur Patrick Stickles in a display of artistic hubris that no buzz band today could begin to attempt... WATCH "Our Hero" awake to a world of wonder! GASP at the shocking secret of "The Lookalike!" MARVEL at the mysterious transformative powers of the Vernal Equinox ! DANCE to those which are already being called " [Titus Andronicus'] Greatest Hits Yet," reads a rather in-depth press release recently uploaded to Titus Andronicus' punked out webpage. "UNDERSTAND the underlying themes and motifs that elevate [The Most Lamentable Tragedy] far beyond the petty constraints of a mere " Rock album" and into the realm of that which the German philosopher K.F.E. Trahndorff first called, in 1827, Gesamtkunstwerk ( "total art" —look it up)," +@ continued. The New Jersey -based Heartland Punk Rock band are of course referring to their soon forthcomin...

"I love Rock 'N' Roll — just regular LP's give me a lot of pleasure. I have another, equally strong love for pieces of art that have different standards in place for, like, what makes them excellent, you know? I wanted to work on a macro level and a micro level. You can enjoy [this album] for three minutes and it's just a good time... or you can invest 93 minutes and hopefully, you'll get something else out of it," Titus Andronicus frontman Patrick Stickles recently lamented to Grantland concerning their just-announced Punk-Rock Opera, The Most Lamentable Tragedy (TMLT) . It was initially announced in a since long-dated September 2013 interview, wherein Stickles summarized it as the story of a "young man, his doppelgänger, and a superhuman race [that] has this curse upon it;" Grantland additionally mentions that in its early gestative phases, was to consist of 30 tracks and would be accompanied by a companion film upon its planned November ...