Protomartyr: melodic sludge for punks who like to sing loudly and don't care who knows it.
Written by Patrick McNamara
Detroit’s Protomartyr are a band of four (Alex! Greg! Joe! Scott!) that make bleak, punked out garage for thinking men and women and mature children. This is scuzzy. This is melodic. This is scum rising to the top of the pops on the wings of a dirty dove about to get eaten by a great feral cat in the sky.
There are all sorts of angles going on with this band. Their jagged guitars are plotting how to stab you in the back. Don’t look to the booms of the bass and the thunder of the drums to save your ass either. They are all working together to take you down. And you’ll love them for it. Getting rocked ain’t always pleasant, baby. But it sure is worth it.
Protomartyr have recently played shows with Parquet Courts and Cloud Nothings. Some booker or tour manager really has a good ear out there. Because those are good sound pairings. So let's hear it for the guy behind the guy behind the guy.
(I also think Protomartyr sounds a little bit like Iceage. But what does what I think matter? I’m just a muzik blob bobbing along in an endless sea of them.)
Alex! Greg! Joe! And Scott! just released (time being relative - you could first come across this twenty years from now - when people are finally able to appreciate the visionary original content at work here) their second record and first for one of my favorite labels, Hardly Art (hardly garbage). It's good.
Consider taking Protomartyr out for a spin. I mean a stream. Below are two dirty chances to do just that. Go ahead and take advantage of them now.
In summation - this is #punk #rock.