New Jersey punks Titus Andronicus have announced a new album titled An Obelisk and released the first single, “(I Blame) Society.” The band filmed the song’s music video, directed by Ray Concepcion, in front of that most American obelisk, the Washington Monument. The song itself is an attempt to reflect on the apportioning of said blame, and the privilege of doing so while hiding “private shame.”
Said frontman Patrick Stickles in a statement:
“The ideology of ‘punk’ supports the elevation of our own interior authority and the degradation of exterior authority, which we recognize to be arbitrary, a tool by which the many are subjugated under the few. While the common ‘punk rocker’ will take this as license to piss on the street and generally pursue a lifestyle of nihilistic hedonism, the true ‘punk’ will recognize the price of this freedom. An Obelisk tells the story of one particular individual, someone maybe a lot like you but certainly a lot like me, scouring linty pockets, trying to pay that bill.”
An Obelisk will be released June 21 via Merge Records. It’s Titus Andronicus’s first album since last March’s A Productive Cough; the band also released the mixtape A Reductive Scoff in October. Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould, who released his own solo album Sunshine Rock this past February, produced the new LP.
You can watch Titus Andronicus’ “(I Blame) Society” video and view the album’s track list below.
An Obelisk Track List
01 Just Like Ringing a Bell
02 Troubleman Unlimited
03 (I Blame) Society
04 My Body and Me
05 Hey Ma
06 Beneath the Boot
07 On the Street
08 Within the Gravitron
09 The Lion Inside
10 Tumult Around the World
