“When my grandmother died several years ago my dad came into my room in the morning and sat at my bedside. he woke me and told me he had to fly out to mexico for the funeral. he told me i had to take care of the dogs. when he left the room i started crying—not because my grandmother had passed away, but because i was overwhelmed, in that moment, by the prospect of taking care of the dogs. this was probably my first encounter with loss since my first dog, jazzy, died. after i cried i was frustrated because i knew i had cried for the wrong reasons. i didn’t mourn right.”

The piece continues through various tales of grief, expanding on Jazzy the dog and musing about why cemeteries are so grim and unpleasant, before ending with:

“h*ckhound is a skeleton dog that appears in my room every night at the witching hour. it runs in circles on my bed, chasing its tail, and when i try to hold it in my arms it crumbles into dust.”

The piece is obviously linked to the album thematically (songs include ‘Dig My Bones’ and ‘Dog Burial Theme’) but the reason I’m mentioning it now is that is represents the record in another way. The writing is strange and concise, moving quickly from one event to another and not overly bothered if you the listener can keep up. As an album, H*ckhound is the exact same way. We go from the ear-bleeding, throat-shredding ‘Vomiting Multitude’ to the loved-up pop-punk promise of ‘Terminal Knuckleheads’ and then the pensive strum-along of ‘This is the New Home’. ‘Strange November’ is a laid back garage jam and ‘Stylites’ accelerates back up to 100mph before the unexpected but lovely ambience of ‘Dog Burial Theme’.

H*ckhound plays like the anxious survivor of some tragedy, troubled but sincere, full of love to give and lose and so desperate to prove it he drags you along by the arm and pleads into your ear in a constant flow. It’s as if some mad scientist forced The Replacements, Black Lips, Weezer and God knows who else into a blender and set the resulting gloop in bone-shaped jelly moulds. 

You can get the album now on a pay-what-you-can basis via Bandcamp or on cassette from King Pizza Records.

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The covers include Weezer, Thin Lizzy, Velvet Underground, The Replacements, Spider Bags, Television Personalities, Cock Sparrer, Bobby Fueller and the Hot Pockets theme – an interesting lineup I’m sure you will agree. The alt. versions are also well worth a listen. The drop in pace for ‘My Time Outside the Womb’ suits it very well, showing that Titus could easily take up making different sounds should they ever want to. The Real Estate-esque slowed down rock is an interesting take on a traditionally high-tempo song.

P.S. This version of the mixtape was uploaded by a Twitter user called @danielguntrip who added all the correct song titles, tags and that sort of thing. The artwork was by another Twitter user, @noahremainsanon. Follow them, they must be decent guys to make the effort.

The post Titus Andronicus LLC Mixtape Vol 1. appeared first on Various Small Flames.