You will always be a loser, man. You’ll always be a loser now, and that’s okay.
- No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future -
“The Monitor” came out of nowhere for me. I woke up last Wednesday knowing nothing about the band, I read a brief snippet about them at work, watched about 30 seconds of a video and bought their album on my way home the same day. If you grew up with the Punk Rawk in Jersey like the FSS did this is your soundtrack. Hailing from Glen Rock, NJ Titus Andronics throw in enough references to things like the Garden State Parkway and the Newark Bears to keep “The Monitor” on their home turf. But don’t let that deter you from checking it out if you’re from Arkansas either. There’s a commonality on “The Monitor” that will speak to kids across America. Having just left the state of Utah I’ve come to the conclusion that whether flanked by snow topped mountains or penned in by beaches and trees we all at some point feel stuck in between our circumstances. People are more or less the same everywhere and you can’t escape the Walmarts, Olive Gardens and assholes as they have a stranglehold on the nation.
I read a brief review of this album when I was sitting in a restaurant in Utah waiting for my food and the reviewer referred to them as “shoegaze punk”. I don’t think this fits really. I would call them punk. But they’re punk in the same way that The Hold Steady can be considered punk (Craig Finn ironically makes an appearance on this album as Walt Whitman). At times you can hear a Springsteenian influence creeping in with calculated use of harmonica and saxophone, as well as direct references to ‘ol Brucie. But they uproot The Boss and turn him on his head with the line “Tramps like us, baby we were born to DIE!” on album opener A More Perfect Union (In New Jersey this is the equivalent of pissing on the State Flag). Other times this album has more of a indie rock Arcade Fire-y feel to it. And still other times you can hear The Drive By Truckers or Desaparecidos, but really it’s hard to pin down cause “The Monitor” is fully capable of standing as it’s own original piece of punk rock art.
“The Monitor” is somewhat a concept album about the Civil War, but more so than that it’s about the notion most kids have growing up that the grass is always greener on the other side. On Theme From Cheers they’re sure that “down in North Carolina I could have been a productive member of society”. Yeah right. As someone who left Jersey for both Boston and L.A. for brief periods of time I can tell you that no matter where you are you bring all your bullshit and baggage with you. You’re lying to yourself if you think otherwise. If you’re uninspired in New Jersey chances are things won’t change across state lines. There’s no escaping your circumstances. The same shit that pisses you off at home will likely piss you off elsewhere. Or at least you’ll find new shit to piss you off. But still you’ll be pissed if you catch my drift. This is the real American Experience. This is what you didn’t know about Lewis and Clark. When they got to the other side they were no better or worse. The thing about this is that you can’t tell people this and have them listen and understand. Part of life is living it and learning these lessons for your own damn self.
Channeling their inner Sick of It All, the theme of Us Vs. Them permeates the album. The refrain “the enemy is everywhere” makes two appearances during the course of the proceedings. The first being more of a rally to battle the second being more of a revelation that no matter where you go there you are (and so too are you’re enemies). So feel free to answer the losers call of the wild, you’ll only come down with homesickness and still be a loser. Or maybe you won’t. Fuck I don’t know. But, for anyone that’s ventured out in hopes that they’d find something, anything, different, “The Monitor” is for you. For anyone that thought the only way to get unstuck from their rut was to run rather than just kick yer ownself in yer ass, “The Monitor” is for you. Learning things the hard way is usually what works best I suppose.
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