Protomartyr - Relatives in Descent
The Guardian 100
(Domino)
A slow-burn apocalypse of ennui and injustice crackles through the sensational fourth album from these Detroit post-punks. Singer Joe Casey’s captivating voice is variously reminiscent of Nick Cave at his most brow-furrowed, talky punks such as Parquet Courts, or a more animatedly pissed-off Matt Berninger of the National; on the anti-patriarchal Male Plague, he even adopts the doltish musicality of Donald Trump’s public speeches. Casey’s soapbox poetry alludes to the wretchedness of global capital but never becomes leaden or pedantic, and the backing, with gothic minor chords offset by pretty detailing, frequently becomes anthemic, as the band goes from coiled and feline on Corpses in Regalia and The Chuckler, to venting and canine on Don’t Go to Anacita. There is hope too, on the painfully beautiful Night-Blooming Cereus, which turns the nocturnal flowers of a cactus into a symbol for a human spirit that can’t be cowed – by war, commerce or a commander-in-chief.
Continue reading... Thu Sep 28 20:45:06 GMT 2017Drowned In Sound 90
"She's just trying to reach you"
There are a few times where Joe Casey, lead vocalist of the Detroit post-punk band Protomartyr, sounds like a haunted figure but none more so than on the above quote. If you have heard Relatives in Descent's stunning lead single and opener 'A Private Understanding', you will already have heard this repeated mantra. However, Casey also closes the album with it.
It is a breathtaking moment, for a band who have developed a knack for them, when the album's finale 'Half Sister', a swaggering, misanthropic song in which Casey tells three (fictional) tales from different points in history all regarding the idea of 'truth;, returns to the line that essentially starts this incredible ride. It is also a nice call-back to the band's 2015 sleeper-hit The Agent Intellect which opens and closes on the same note, keeping up this idea that music, art, life is often cyclical, through the ages and generations.
And indeed, there is a lot here on Relatives in Descent - a title which alludes to passing generations - which concerns the idea of ageing, wondering what will become of our future as a result of our past and the anxieties that brings, along with just trying to carry on existentially in the modern day. On songs like 'My Children', Casey aggressively plays the role of the older generation who have arguably sold the next one down the river with its selfish and fearful political and social decisions "My children/They are the future/Good luck with the mess I left, you innovators." Later, Casey reprises this role on 'Male Plague' where he details the fears of the ageing patriarchy both physically ("see-through skin, barnacles of age") mentally ("Old days misremembering"), emotionally ("Fear of the future - losing your hold") and politically ("False news beamed right in"_).
Casey has always been a seething frontman even at the best of times, wildly critical of politicians and big business's hypocrisy and self-regard. However, in this age where "vile Trumpets" are blowing, and the concepts of false news are being blurred with the ideas of 'truth' and 'facts' there is a much-justified case for anger. Casey avoids easy finger-pointing or generalising of his own, bar a few intended puns, instead, mixing the mundanity of everyday interactions such as talking to call-centre customer service assistants from "Bangalore... or was it Mahabalipuram?" in 'The Chuckler' with wild, dramatic stories like the horse who was struck by lightning, began to speak a foreign language and was understood to say "humans are no good" before being shot for his truth-saying in the aforementioned 'Half Sister'.
Protomartyr largely get away with these lofty themes because of Casey's voice. Both melancholic and furious at once, he conveys a fragility and insightfulness that makes him such a haunting presence all over this record and equally if you ever get the chance to see him perform live. He has shown plenty of moments like this before, especially on The Agent Intellect where he penned an incredibly moving epitaph to his mother in 'For Ellen' or, it seemed, re-assured us, the listener 'There's no use being sad about it/What's the point in crying about it?' on the stunning 'Pontiac 87'. However, here on the band's fourth and best album to date, there is no denying his prowess as a Nick Cave for a new generation, even if, ironically, Casey is closer to Cave's than the rest of his band or most of his audience.
Over the course of Protomartyr's existence, there have constants and there have been variables. Right from the word go with their 2012 debut No Passion All Technique Casey has been an enigmatic and infatuating frontman, backed by a terrific trio of innovative musicians: Greg Ahee's driving, sumptuous guitar, Scott Davidson's hypnotic bass, Alex Leonard's thunderous drums. All that's really changed, other than Sonny DiPerri (Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors)'s expertly wide-screen production, is that the band have got more confident and therefore, better, with every release. You only need to listen to opening, jarring drumbeat of 'A Private Understanding' (and with it the album) or the gorgeous 'Night-Blooming Cereus' to appreciate that. Meanwhile, tracks like 'Don't Go to Anacita' see the band produce something so playful it is verging on pop-punk, minus the cheesiness that genre can elicit.
Ultimately though, this fairly incredible album's best moments do come from its opening and closing, and so it only seems right for this review to finish by returning to it. 'A Private Understanding' is arguably one of, if not the song of the year or will at least take some beating. How a song that goes from such a disorientating drum-beat to such a euphoric, anthemic chorus and back again without losing an inch of pace or emotion is utterly beyond this writer. The song is thematically linked to the album's closer not just because of the repeated final lyric, but also as it too deals with "reported" stories from the past being presented as a "possible truth". This time in the re-telling of the original rock star's final days:
"Elvis outside of Flagstaff
Driving a camper van
Looking for meaning in a cloud mass
Sees the face of Joseph Stalin and is disheartened
Then the wind changed the cloud into his smiling Lord
And he was affected profoundly
But he could never describe the feeling
He passed away on the bathroom floor
She's just trying to reach you."
Drowned In Sound 90
"She's just trying to reach you"
There are a few times where Joe Casey, lead vocalist of the Detroit post-punk band Protomartyr, sounds like a haunted figure but none more so than on the above quote. If you have heard Relatives in Descent's stunning lead single and opener 'A Private Understanding', you will already have heard this repeated mantra. However, Casey also closes the album with it.
It is a breathtaking moment, for a band who have developed a knack for them, when the album's finale 'Half Sister', a swaggering, misanthropic song in which Casey tells three (fictional) tales from different points in history all regarding the idea of 'truth;, returns to the line that essentially starts this incredible ride. It is also a nice call-back to the band's 2015 sleeper-hit The Agent Intellect which opens and closes on the same note, keeping up this idea that music, art, life is often cyclical, through the ages and generations.
And indeed, there is a lot here on Relatives in Descent - a title which alludes to passing generations - which concerns the idea of ageing, wondering what will become of our future as a result of our past and the anxieties that brings, along with just trying to carry on existentially in the modern day. On songs like 'My Children', Casey aggressively plays the role of the older generation who have arguably sold the next one down the river with its selfish and fearful political and social decisions "My children/They are the future/Good luck with the mess I left, you innovators." Later, Casey reprises this role on 'Male Plague' where he details the fears of the ageing patriarchy both physically ("see-through skin, barnacles of age") mentally ("Old days misremembering"), emotionally ("Fear of the future - losing your hold") and politically ("False news beamed right in"_).
Casey has always been a seething frontman even at the best of times, wildly critical of politicians and big business's hypocrisy and self-regard. However, in this age where "vile Trumpets" are blowing, and the concepts of false news are being blurred with the ideas of 'truth' and 'facts' there is a much-justified case for anger. Casey avoids easy finger-pointing or generalising of his own, bar a few intended puns, instead, mixing the mundanity of everyday interactions such as talking to call-centre customer service assistants from "Bangalore... or was it Mahabalipuram?" in 'The Chuckler' with wild, dramatic stories like the horse who was struck by lightning, began to speak a foreign language and was understood to say "humans are no good" before being shot for his truth-saying in the aforementioned 'Half Sister'.
Protomartyr largely get away with these lofty themes because of Casey's voice. Both melancholic and furious at once, he conveys a fragility and insightfulness that makes him such a haunting presence all over this record and equally if you ever get the chance to see him perform live. He has shown plenty of moments like this before, especially on The Agent Intellect where he penned an incredibly moving epitaph to his mother in 'For Ellen' or, it seemed, re-assured us, the listener 'There's no use being sad about it/What's the point in crying about it?' on the stunning 'Pontiac 87'. However, here on the band's fourth and best album to date, there is no denying his prowess as a Nick Cave for a new generation, even if, ironically, Casey is closer to Cave's than the rest of his band or most of his audience.
Over the course of Protomartyr's existence, there have constants and there have been variables. Right from the word go with their 2012 debut No Passion All Technique Casey has been an enigmatic and infatuating frontman, backed by a terrific trio of innovative musicians: Greg Ahee's driving, sumptuous guitar, Scott Davidson's hypnotic bass, Alex Leonard's thunderous drums. All that's really changed, other than Sonny DiPerri (Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors)'s expertly wide-screen production, is that the band have got more confident and therefore, better, with every release. You only need to listen to opening, jarring drumbeat of 'A Private Understanding' (and with it the album) or the gorgeous 'Night-Blooming Cereus' to appreciate that. Meanwhile, tracks like 'Don't Go to Anacita' see the band produce something so playful it is verging on pop-punk, minus the cheesiness that genre can elicit.
Ultimately though, this fairly incredible album's best moments do come from its opening and closing, and so it only seems right for this review to finish by returning to it. 'A Private Understanding' is arguably one of, if not the song of the year or will at least take some beating. How a song that goes from such a disorientating drum-beat to such a euphoric, anthemic chorus and back again without losing an inch of pace or emotion is utterly beyond this writer. The song is thematically linked to the album's closer not just because of the repeated final lyric, but also as it too deals with "reported" stories from the past being presented as a "possible truth". This time in the re-telling of the original rock star's final days:
"Elvis outside of Flagstaff
Driving a camper van
Looking for meaning in a cloud mass
Sees the face of Joseph Stalin and is disheartened
Then the wind changed the cloud into his smiling Lord
And he was affected profoundly
But he could never describe the feeling
He passed away on the bathroom floor
She's just trying to reach you."
Tiny Mix Tapes 70
Protomartyr
Relatives in Descent
[Domino; 2017]
Rating: 3.5/5
Post-punk has long been a paragon of musical and lyrical unrest, smacking of gravitas and self-seriousness. Excepting Talking Heads’ oft-exuberant exploration of the urbane artist lifestyle, the genre has perennially reveled in disaffection, ranging from the codified depression of progenitors Joy Division to the fraught maladjustment of contemporaries Preoccupations. Detroit’s Protomartyr are no strangers to alienation, their high-minded postmodern lyricism frequently brushing with cultural, historical, and societal touchstones to construct a salvo of personal disillusionment and philosophical crisis. As such, the group is wont to conflate the political with the introspective. Relatives in Descent is no exception: the band’s Domino Records debut furthers Protomartyr’s penchant for belletristic navel-gazing while maintaining the social consciousness that informed their three previous releases.
Front man and literary onanist Joe Casey recently gave NPR a track-by-track breakdown of the album, detailing the history behind each song’s lyrics and accumulating a varied and daunting bibliography of inspirational sources in the process. Like Vampire Weekend, Protomartyr fancy the sly literary or pop culture reference in their lyrics; but while the former utilize allusion to bridge the gap between esoterica and youth culture, the latter pull from a panoply of obscure texts to reflect the information overload symptomatic of the “Internet Age.” The group does so to varying returns throughout the record, with certain lines invoking genuine pathos: “I guess I’ll keep chuckling/ ‘Til there’s no more breath in my lungs/ And it really doesn’t matter at all,” while others flounder with their metaphysical didactics: “Truth is a colicking horse/[…] Truth is a babbling prisoner.” Casey is at his lyrical best when tackling philosophical questions obliquely rather than head on, which is exactly why “Half Sister” pales in comparison to “The Chuckler.” Nevertheless, that both songs flirt with Camusian themes, while the rest of Relatives reckons with a host of other referents — both arcane and familiar — bespeaks Protomartyr’s commitment to crafting challenging, academic songs reflective of their harried social and political climate.
The success of the album’s lyrics rests largely on the efficacy of Casey’s sprechgesang, an unadorned vocal delivery that places him somewhere between D. Boon and Nick Cave. Casey’s stentorian voice buttresses his words, instilling a sense of urgency in his verbose streams of consciousness. Keeping with their singer’s outré musicianship, the rest of the band forges ahead with its characteristically off-kilter sense of rhythm and dissonance. Guitarist Greg Ahee pays homage to his indie forebears, mimicking Yo La Tengo’s blurry guitar sound on “Caitriona” and recalling Sonic Youth’s abrasion on the final third of “Night Blooming Cereus.” Rhythm section Alex Leonard and Scott Davidson, too, find inspiration in those noise pop groups of the 80s and 90s, as they impel a tumbling bass and drum dervish on the Pixie-esque “Here Is the Thing.” As a collective, the group thrives on friction, allowing each instrument to collide with one another by virtue of their staggering heft without any single musician overpowering the mix.
A testament to post-punk’s paradoxically consistent but ever-mutating sound, Relatives in Descent tethers the influence of its predecessors to the genre’s current sound. Here, Protomartyr oscillate between the literary and musical giants of the past and the burgeoning fears of the current cultural epoch. Equally informed by universal human crises as it is by contemporary imbroglios, the album aims to disorient, alienate, and dismay the listener. The band is usually able to do all three in a single song. Often in one line.