Titus Andronicus

Event details

Titus Andronicus
Wed, Mar 1 Show: 8:00 pm (Doors: 7:00 pm )
$18 - $20
Titus Andronicus live at the Grog Shop

Wednesday, March 1st
7p doors / 8p show
$18 advance / $20 day of show
All Ages

+ $3 at door if under 21

Titus Andronicus

With their seventh studio album, revered rock institution Titus Andronicus invite you on a journey from fear to faith, from anger to acceptance, from grief to gratitude, chasing the mythical ideal of Ultimate Rock, all in hopes that you will find The Will to Live.
 

The Will to Live was produced by Titus Andronicus singer-songwriter Patrick Stickles and Canadian icon Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen, The Whole Nine Yards) at the latter’s Hotel 2 Tango recording studio in Montreal. Drawing on maximalist rock epics from Who’s Next to Hysteria, Bilerman and Stickles have crafted the richest, densest, and hardest-hitting sound for Titus Andronicus yet. All at once, the record matches the sprawl and scope of the band’s most celebrated work, while also honing their ambitious attack to greater effect than ever before. “It may strike some as ironic we had to go to Canada to record our equivalent to Born in the USA,” quips Stickles, “but the pursuit of Ultimate Rock knows no borders.”

To reach this level of focus and clarity, Stickles had to stand on the nexus of triumph and tragedy.

For his recent stretch of personal stability, he credits a newfound domestic bliss and steadfast mental health regimen (“Lamictal is a hell of a drug”) as well as the endurance of what has become the longest-running consistent lineup of Titus Andronicus—as with 2018’s A Productive Cough and 2019’s An Obelisk, The Will to Live proudly features Liam Betson on guitar, R.J. Gordon on bass, and Chris Wilson on drums.
 


The Zells

“Having released projects titled Failure to Slide and No More Heroes, The Zells were already fluent in despondency before the storm of 2020 hit — so for once, something went right for these guys. The Pittsburgh quintet’s sophomore LP, Ant Farm, is not just their best, most refined, transfixing, and emotionally seizing project yet, but a uniquely articulate statement about our generational plight.

Building upon their singular mesh of sounds — slumped-neck indie-rock, fizzy garage-rock, defiant post-punk, and puffy-white shoegaze rips — the gang drafted a personnel sheet of basement indie who’s who’s that doubles as a useful RIYL list. Adam Reich (So So Glos), Jordyn Blakely (Smile Machine, Stove, Maneka), Davey Jones (Lost Boy ?) and RJ Gordon (Baked, Titus Andronicus) make musical cameos, while Gordon engineered and mixed the whole shebang and Big Ups’ Amar Lal mastered it. The Zells have been and always will be proudly lo-fi like their idols in Sebadoh and Guided By Voices, but the songs on Ant Farm sizzle, pop, thrash, and moisten the eyes in a way their previous recordings didn’t, and that's largely thanks to the sleeker, roomier production. “ - Eli Enis