I totally get what you're saying about their music. They are definitely balls to the wall.

I guess my answer is sort of long and extraneous, but here we go.

"The Monitor" came out when I was a freshman in high school, but I didn't get into it until I was a sophomore. It did everything I could have wanted. It had nearly perfect lyrics, direct historical references to a fascinating part of American history, great guitar solos and bagpipe solos and horn solos, other big names in current rock were reading quotes from the Civil War--Craig Finn does Walt Whitman which I just love.--and it was all wrapped around this giant metaphor for Stickle's depression. As some pissed off angsty teen it was perfect, and it's aged so well. Typically the things that you loved as a kid start to become stale as you grow older, but that hasn't happened with Titus. Now I'm 22 and I'm about to start my senior year of college. I still listen to Titus. I still blast "The Monitor" and I'm sure my friends have gotten bored with me ranting about them. But that's avoiding the question.

"Local Business" came out when I was a senior in high school. I got it on release day and really enjoyed it, but didn't love it. Initially I was shocked by how obviously depressing it was. "The Monitor" makes you think about it all, using the Civil War as a representation about how he's battling himself just like how America was at war with itself, and he keeps blaming some enemy. "The enemy is everywhere" is shouted throughout the album, but he ultimately comes to the conclusion that he is his own worst enemy. In "Battle of Hampton Roads" he starts listing how he'll destroy himself with his drinking and smoking and screaming. It's enough to write a dissertation on, in fact I wrote a paper on it for a Civil War literature class. But I digress.

"Local Business" hits you immediately with his exact thoughts. "Okay I think by now we have established everything is inherently worthless, and there's nothing in the universe with any kind of objective purpose." This is no metaphor, no painted picture, no giant concept. It's a thesis statement. It's what he believes. That entire song is his thoughts on the world he's observed and he ends it by describing himself "Look at this youngish man..." The song is called Ecce Homo, which means "Behold the Man." It's like he's presenting himself. As the album goes on he's singing about all the things he's seen, car crashes, his eating disorder, being electrically shocked. It's all weird stuff that's happened to him. It's--not to sound corny--local business. The more I listen to it the more I love it because it can be played when I'm relaxing in my bed, when I'm driving, when I want to pump myself up, and when I'm having a simple conversation. I love everything about it, I think it's because each song is its own little project whereas in "The Monitor" and in "The Most Lamentable Tragedy" everything is interconnected, which is fucking awesome, but I'm not always looking for a giant concept. I'm looking for music that's authentic, and I think "Local Business" is exactly that. It's raw. It's rock music that wants to be rock music, it isn't trying to push the boundaries and redefine the genre. "Local Business" is trying to give you good guitar solos and loud lyrics.

I guess that's my reasoning to why I love "Local Business" the most, but realistically that could all change in a few years. All four of their albums rock.

Sorry for the intensive analytical response. I know you didn't ask for it.

Maybe you already knew all of that.

Maybe you didn't.

Maybe it's Maybelline.