- I’m strongly considering changing my writing name for the rest of this review to either Rip Van Winkle or the Purple Wiggle because Christ mate, I’ve been sleeping so incredibly hard on the glorious pomp of Protomartyr. I’ll need to astral project like in that one episode of The X-Files to give myself a different perspective on how the fuck this band could have possibly missed my orbit. It is everything I love and then some when it comes to janky post-punk, instrumentals droning and ramping tension. In amongst the rising agitation melodies worm threads through the song fabric and commanding boom vocal presence runs wild between tonal trees of this fabric forest. What a pleasant wake up call this was.
In a similar vein to Australia’s own Tropical Fuck Storm, this album feels imposing in its sonic grandeur but humbly undercut by the vocals' bombastic nature. If these gorgeous, baritone performances were replaced with anxiety inducing howls in a skramz fashion, we’d have a very different beast on out hands. This lane of post-punk works spectacularly well when the songs, regardless of their length, operate in a free flowing, ham band feel. Ultimate Success Today starts right in line with this as Days Without End doubles as the album’s opener and the new start to the band’s live set. It harnesses a throbbing bass line to shackle the boiling kettle of a track until it’s a screeching whistle, before spilling over into what follows. To carry over the water-based analogy, it’s a tale of tides with Processed By The Boys. A chordal wave rises and crashes against guitar rattles, continuing the rapid tidal changes. It only changes in this push pull movement when ebullient solos spray across the soundscape.
You can imagine these songs being played in a cramped, sweaty room with all social distancing rules being given a massive sea of middle fingers, with the performers thrashing on stage under heavy coats and drenched in perspiration…god I’m just getting wicked nostalgic now. The busy songs come thick and fast as I Am You Now, Michigan Hammers and Modern Business Hymns race by. That final one has an oddly pleasant melody coming from all the guitars being thoroughly throttled. Tranquilizer is utterly mesmerising in its simplicity. Cut throughout the record, there’s been this lonely wandering horn-swarm and it pairs with a quiet, buzzing, night-time sound space on this song. It drones around before being absolutely stomped out by a filth bass which romps around and is the cherry on top of the Protomartyr sundae. The linear repetition is as hypnotic as it is meditative. Finishing on a more sombre note, the tension built up over the record thus far is languid. It’s a smooth way to end a tonne of fun record.
Can this be my alarm every single day? It broke my out of my Protomartry slumber and man, did it work wonders.
- Matt Lynch.