PROTOMARTYR - HOTEL USONA - DOMINO

Protomartyr presents “Exalted Eagles,” the final preview from their new album, Hotel Usona, out Friday via Domino. On Hotel Usona, Casey has imagined his country as an aging hotel, each song a room haunted by its own troublesome guest. Following the “supremely ugly skronk-rock freakout that manages to be oppressive and cathartic at the same damn time,” (Stereogum) “Feed The Sewer,” “Exalted Eagles” comments on warped patriotism. It’s a hard look at a nation in free fall, gripped by fascism. Vocalist Joe Casey says, “the last taste from Hotel Usona before it comes out on Friday. So now that you’ve heard a third of the album are you sold? If in doubt, remember: Annuit cœptis! PS: please leave a review and tell your friends. The algorithm needs all the help it can get.”   

Recorded with legendary producer Dave Fridmann (Sleater-Kinney, MGMT, The Flaming Lips) at his own Tarbox Road Studios in western New York, Hotel Usona is an effort that finds the Detroit post-punk outfit reckoning with the horrors of our current moment. It is not easy listening. It’s essential. 

Over the last two decades, Protomartyr— Casey, drummer Alex Leonard, bassist Scott Davidson, and multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Greg Ahee—have built one of the most rewarding and often exhilarating bodies of work in recent memory by veering in and out of darkness, grappling with what most frightens us, saddens us, disgusts us, embarrasses and enrages us, and with a gallows humor for the ages, gives a sense of the comedy inherent in so much that we encounter. Essentially, the stuff that makes us human. 

Musically, Ahee has built worlds within a world, drawing new influence from the Middle East and ‘50s exotica, finding common ground between dread and joy, a speciality. All of it—Leonard’s drumming in particular—is rendered more tangible and terrifying by Fridmann, whose son, Jon, contributes horns. You can feel the stakes in every song, feel the band levitating to meet them. They’ve never sounded more powerful. Take it from someone who knows: Iggy Pop. 

What is a Protomartyr? I don't really know, but I imagine it may refer to an earthly being who wants a little more than the usual shit out of life. A person or persons who want to be part of something beautiful and interesting, with the understanding that you may pay a price for that, and that others who come after will have an easier time. Kind of like Jesus. 

So then there is Protomartyr the band. Four guys who are very, very skilled musicians and creators who I suspect would be totally fucked without the intervention of their talents, which are considerable. 

They are, to put it crudely, a kind of rock band out of Detroit. That's a subject I know something about. 

And they've made a new album. It is highly themed and symphonic in its reach. I could call it a kind of drive-through Sgt. Peppers, but that would miss the mark. This record is Wagnerian, it reminds me very much of the Opera Tristan and Isolde (by Richard Wagner). Musically, it sounds modal, and kind of chromatic, like I imagine Celtic war horns might sound in some forgotten battle. The singer, Joe Casey, is blessed with a beautiful voice that you want to listen to, but he stays perverse enough to keep things interesting when he wants to get petulant or a little bitchy. 

One of my favorite moments on the record is when he simply announces, all alone, “We got a bad review." Which presides a furious outpouring from the entire group. Wow! I wish I thought of that! And in today's world, how relatable! Who hasn't gotten a bad review? Plumbers, shoe salesmen, etc etc etc. right up to Influencers. All is reviewed... I'm trying hard not to let this attempt at biography turn into a review, but hey, I've been listening to these guys for quite a while now and I get the feeling that they are a slow growth item, something that is gaining followers, listeners, and respect little by little, over the long haul. There's a lot of content here. The four of them can shift rhythms and harmonics very, very smoothly in a way that seems effortless. It's the mark of fine arts in a popular group. 

— Iggy Pop