乐队：Titus Andronicus
专辑：The Airing Of Grievances
风格：punk / noise rock
年份：2008.04
1. Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ
2. My Time Outside The Womb
3. Joset Of Nazareth’s Blues
4. Arms Against Atrophy
5. Upon Viewing Brueghel’s “Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus”
6. Titus Andronicus
7. No Future Part One
8. No Future Part Two: The Days After No Future
9. Albert Camus
Titus Andronicus是一个来自新泽西Glen Rock的小乐队。这个乐队真的很小！没有官网！只有blogspot和myspace。他们自称风格是Indie / Punk / Shoegaze，假的，Punk有余，Shoegaze不足。这种风格是我已经远离了的，不是很习惯。而且我也完全无法理解Pitchfork为什么给 他们8.5，高过今年一众大乐队。这张专辑无疑有许多问题，甚至不够顺畅，血气过于方刚了些，但是很好玩，颓废气质迷死人。
首先看乐队名：Titus Andronicus，《泰特斯·安特洛尼克斯》是莎士比亚早期剧作，写于1584至十六世纪九十年代初之间。当然这个乐队名不说明问题。那几个美国小青年很喜欢莎士比亚？保不准只是看过电影呢？噢，可惜这伙人确实是文学和哲学爱好者。带有明显的小愤青倾向，看看第一首歌《Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ》的歌词：
Why do you do the things you’ve done and how dumb would you have to be to do them again like I know you’re going to? If you’re the poet you say you are and beauty’s in everything you see, then how can love exist in a world run by people like you? Because when there’s suffering, you’re there. From southern trees, you hang them in the air. The world screams out in agony and you don’t care, but should the shit hit the fan, I just pray you will not be spared. Fuck you.
You took a heart with so much room for love and filled it with hatred and rage until there was nothing left but for it to shrivel up and die. People will tell you that if you don’t love your neighbor, then you don’t love God, but no god of mine would put light in such unrighteous eyes. Now the way we hold each other so tight would look more like a noose if held up to the light because we betray each other in dreams every night. Now let’s never speak of it again, all right?
其中，Fuck You出现得极为突兀，Pitchfork的评论中也提到了这点。听过这首歌的人都不得不提到这点。Fuck You成了整张专辑的开场白和象征。好吧，这只是基调，第二首《My Time Outside The Womb》也不省心。什么Nazareth’s Blues，AAA，一路不着调地狂奔。AAA能找回一点The Strokes过去的影子。更加乱哄哄一点。确切说非常乱七八糟。
>>Video::Titus Andronicus – Arms Against Atrophy
然后，最强大的一首歌出现了：《Upon Viewing Brueghel’s “Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus”》。Brueghel应该就是彼得·勃罗格尔，Pieter Brueghel the Elder（1525-1569/9/9），画《巴别塔》的那位，《Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus》（121.9X91.4cm） 是其名作之一，作于1558年。在勃罗格尔画作前重温Icarus的故事是何种感受？朝气蓬勃，同时鲁莽自信的Icarus不顾父亲Daedalus的劝阻，过于靠近太阳，羽毛上的蜂蜡被太阳烤化，溺水而死。画面初看一派和谐，大片的海洋，劳作的农民，暗藏垂死的挣扎。这里还有一首诗。看着写得清晰不少。
Landscape With The Fall of Icarus
by William Carlos WilliamsAccording to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was springa farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantryof the year was
awake tingling
nearthe edge of the sea
concerned
with itselfsweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ waxunsignificantly
off the coast
there wasa splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowningFrom Collected Poems: 1939-1962, Volume II by William Carlos Williams, published by New Directions Publishing Corp. © 1962 by William Carlos Williams. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
终于到了同名曲，这个源自莎士比亚的故事看来标志着乐队的核心思想。可惜我没看过。本文不是评论，仅是简介。如果我要评论，至少得把《Titus Andronicus》看了再说。
绕过同名曲后就是上下两部分《No Future》。先看歌词：
towards the railroad track. I’ve been staring at the gates, but I’ve never found a crack, so I’m just looking up, saying, “Deliver me a heart attack.” If you’re weary, I don’t mind sharing the load, just keep me some company on the road. All I’ve got is a bottle that I ought to leave alone, but it’s the only thing that I can call my own, so I’m saying goodbye, and no, I won’t forget to write. It’s just been too long racing towards a yellow light, and I know that I say this every night, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired of life.
And if things should not get better, would you wait for me to change, or would I see you waving goodbye from the window of an aeroplane? If I told you it was hopeless, would you try to understand, or would you leave me for a palm tree and its shadow on the sand? Because I’ve been waiting all year for the temperature to drop, but now I’ve got a fever and I don’t know how to make it stop. There’s still one shoe that hasn’t dropped yet. It’s hanging on by an aglete. This world seems like a nice place to visit, but I don’t want to live in it.
There is not a doctor that can diagnose me. I am dying slowly from Patrick Stickles Disease. There is not a medication that can cure what’s ailing me. The only treatment they offer is to hang me from a tree. Life’s been a long, sick game of “Would You Rather, so now I’m going to medical school… as a cadaver. Now if I could say only one thing with the whole world listening, it would be, “Leave me the fuck alone… or welcome to the Terrordome.”
这个乐队的成员们，好去死了。
最后一首歌是《Albert Camus》。No Future之后还有这么一首也在情理之中。Titus Andronicus在myspace上写着：
The enemy is everywhere.（敌人无处不在）
以及
Titus Andronicus believe only in nothingness. Everyone in Titus Andronicus was born to die.（Titus Andronicus只相信虚无。Titus Andronicus的每个人都生来为死）
这些人就是Nirvana的后代，存在主义的追随者，往前去，就是克尔凯郭尔的子孙。克尔凯郭尔说：
我面前仍是一片空荡荡的虚空，我却被自己身后的一个结果推动着。这种生活周而复始，令人惊骇，不可忍受。
又说：
我的生活绝对毫无意义。
我不知道为什么这么多年来都喜欢着克尔凯郭尔。面对他，加缪、萨特、叔本华等人都逊色不少。完全是一种情绪上的亲近，克尔凯郭尔没有什么挣扎，没有美化这种挣扎。遇到虚无，撞见虚无，没有逃避，迎面而上。展现了作为一个人最朴素的一面。
还是来看看Titus Andronicus压轴作品《Albert Camus》的歌词：
Running around this run-down, one-horse town.One of these days, they’re gonna crucify me. How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable it is to be young, dumb, and have lots of money. We will sit upon this grassy knoll, holding hands and stroking handguns, with pristine souls, and even my own mother will tell you I am an asshole, but underneath it all, there is an apathetic heart of gold. So who will be saved, from the least to the greatest men? Because even Honest Abe sold posion milk to schoolchildren.
The blood drive came to Glen Rock High in a white bus with red letters on the side and a long shiny needle they brought to suck me dry like missionary misquitoes in the sky. Now you’re doing time for stealing candy from a babe because all the kids in Ridgewood have got cell phones these days and if you wear a mask, they can still read your license plate and a wireless line is a terrible thing to waste. Because the more we think, the less it all makes sense, tonight we will drink to our general indifference.
Lamb of God, we think nothing of ourselves at all. So, Death, be not proud because we don’t give a fuck about nothing and we only want what we are not allowed.
你以为这是首讴歌加缪的歌？听了就知道，歌词灵感来自《局外人》，还是绕不开那点破事。
最后我承认有一种相见恨晚的感觉。该乐队成立于2005年，前两年有过一些地下演出。youtube上有视频的，我忽略他们了。这听上去不符合我现在的口味，确实有些粗糙，但是某种要死要活的恶劣情绪触动了我。