TITUS ANDRONICUS

Somehow, Titus Andronicus stitched together a punk concept album about the Civil War and New Jersey on 2010’s brilliant The Monitor. The Garden State rockers take a less narrative approach on their latest, an autobiographical unburdening by frontman Patrick Stickles. He details an inadvertent electrocution on the jaunty sing-along “(I Am the) Electric Man,” a short stint living in New York City on the terse rocker “Still Life With Hot Deuce on Silver Platter,” and his struggle with a rare condition called selective eating on “My Eating Disorder,” an eight-minute tune that ebbs and flows from loud to soft. Although Titus veers away from the conceptual, the band remains theatrical, particularly on “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With the Flood of Detritus.” With sing-songy vocals and intertwined guitar harmonies, the supremely catchy song sounds tailor-made for a rock opera where the audience rises to its feet to chant along with the refrain, “Built to last, built to last!” –Eric R. Danton