The Airing of Grievances

Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances
Critic Score
Based on 21 reviews
2008 Ratings: #27 / 806
User Score
Based on 81 ratings
2008 Rank: #125
Liked by 7 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Sputnikmusic
This album is a constant reminder that you can love your country without being blinded by it, that you can die penniless but absolutely happy, that the political is always personal, and that being a part of the crowd is not a bad thing if you've found something worth following.
100
Entertainment Weekly

With thrash-and-burn riffs, shout-along rants, E Street Band-style blue-collar blues, and tin-can acoustics, these Jersey boys' debut album The Airing of Grievances burns all the way down from its big mouth to its black liver.

91
A.V. Club
With its brash and boiling-over debut, Titus Andronicus has done its small part to draw indie-rock out of the genre's recent navel-obsessed slump.
90
PopMatters

Each play of Grievances is like that triumphant, sweaty bar show, right there in your room.

90
Prefix

The majority of the album is exactly what indie rock has been lacking for over a decade, and this is too crucial a release to get caught up in nitpicking.

90
DIY
This is an all out smash and grab for the intellect, the references to literature and TV are thinly veiled but still fun to spot in the aftermath once this album has blown you well and truly out of the water.
90
Alternative Press

It might have sucked the first time you went through it, but here, it couldn't sound better.

87
Paste
It’s sincere, even. And a little sincerity couldn’t hurt indie rock right now.
85
Pitchfork
On a lyric sheet, Titus Andronicus may appear to espouse the sort of wrist-cutting histrionics emo's typically lambasted for, but the magic lies in the band's oddly enthusiastic grass roots delivery.
80
musicOMH

This sense of being aware of our own impending death leading to a heightened sense of life sums up perfectly The Airing of Grievances, an album that bemoans the past, shrugs it's shoulders and raises a glass to the future.

80
The Irish Times
It's sloppy, rambunctious and certainly imperfect, but an effective mix of air-thumping anthems and woozy shoegaze makes this an endearing debut.
80
Spectrum Culture

The Airing of Grievances deals heavily in the dark stuff. Even its few instances of humor are meant to be taken with a mournful shrug, not a wry smile.

80
The Guardian
These are songs to learn and sing as loudly, messily and drunkenly as possible.
80
The Skinny

The Airing is a shattering breakthrough: more than mere Arcade Fire sound-a-likes, Titus Andronicus are the latest and best band to take the existentialist who-gives-a-fuck baton and run with it.

74
The Line of Best Fit
Its an alright album, boozy and literate, if you like The Hold Steady, The Pogues, that sort of thing, only a bit more noisy and exuberant maybe, I think you should give Titus Andronicus a listen.
70
Rolling Stone
There's emo in the tortured lyrics and E Street Band in the arrangements, both appropriate for a Jersey crew. And the sizzling, storage-locker production makes it all sound like a cage match.
70
Uncut

The Airing Of Grievances is one of the smartest, most joyous records in an age, channelling the spirit of other too-clever-by-half suburban punks from The Replacements to Nirvana and adding a dash of felllow New Jerseyite Bruce Springsteen's eye for detail.

70
SPIN

Patrick Stickles screams and moans amid the swirling, lo-fi racket, and although he sounds a helluva lot like Conor Oberst, this is no Bright Eyes knockoff. The Airing of Grievances is more inviting, fraternal, and widely referential.

70
AllMusic

The Airing of Grievances isn't a perfect record by any means, but it is a lot of fun -- and if they can avoid cleaning up their sound too much and keep plugging away, they may come up with something great someday.

60
Q Magazine
Muddy production means the literate lyrics often get drowned out by the surrounding racket, but otherwise this is a raw treat.
59
Coke Machine Glow

In total—and there is absolutely no other way to absorb this album; if it lets up it will lose itself—the sentiment is hostile, championing a mismatched, bitchy pile of allusions to alienation, dissatisfaction, and indifference that begs for attention and respect but is too passive to amount to anything but a wan wash.

ShoegazeJake
100

Good on Titus naming themselves after Shakespeare and then getting into the head of any indie kid reading Shakespeare

Timbo
85

A great debut.

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