The album ends in brand new territory for Protomartyr: a genuine love song, "Rain Garden." (Casey just got married, congrats to the happy couple!) One of the most musically ambitious things the band have ever recorded, Casey lays himself bare, singing "Make way for my love," and bringing the album full circle. The album is also expertly sequenced, taking us from despair to hope with some wonderful transitions, like when Alex Leonard's precision drumming on "Fun in Hi Skool" kicks in as the final chord in "Elimination Dances" fades. Greg Ahee, the band's sonic architect, does amazing work on these songs, building atmospheres with guitars, synthesizers and pedal steel that contrast/compliment Casey's vocals, and the addition of pedal steel makes things all the more cinematic without falling into spaghetti western cliche. Much like with Bill Hader on the final season of Barry, what he sees as funny may play as pure horror to many audiences. Casey drops in a lot of humor throughout, actually, though you might have to google some phrases to get the joke. Then there's the razor-sharp "Fun in Hi Skool" which, to borrow of phrase from Tony Soprano, is how "'Remember When' is the lowest form of conversation." When Casey seethes, "At least you had fun in hi-skool," his voice fades into echo, like a specter whispering horrific truths in your dreams before you wake up startled.Īs for those corporations, there's "Tip the Creator," which wickedly lampoons tech billionaires, in particular Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse and "3800 Tigers," where Casey notes there are only 3800 tigers in this world but "there’s far too many of you," while working in a few Detroit Tigers baseball references, too. As to the former, you hear it on the album's one-two-punch opening salvo of "Make Way" and "For Tomorrow" which together are a nod to Leo McCarey's heartbreaking 1937 film Make Way for Tomorrow. Casey hasn't lightened up, per se, but he doesn't sound quite as defeated.Ī couple themes emerge: the burden of the past (and the dangers of nostalgia), and corporations / the wealthy sticking it to us while laughing. The band decamped last year to Sonic Ranch in El Paso, with Ahee enlisting pedal steel player William Radcliffe on nearly every song.įor those who listened to Ultimate Success Today and thought "if this was made before the pandemic, what will a record made during it be like?," the answer is "pretty great." Formal Growth in the Desert is Protomartyr's best record since Under Cover of Official Right. The whole band seems energized and locked-in, and where Success felt unrelenting and bleak (some would say that's Protomartyr's thing on all records), here are they empowering. The dumpster fire of the last three years also proved too ripe a source for Casey to keep down his pen. Guitarist Greg Ahee scored a couple short films which reignited his creativity and he started writing songs again. Ultimately, the pandemic allowed Protomartyr to reset.
Between the election, Black Live Matter and other civil unrest, not to mention a number of personal tragedies, Protomartyr asked themselves "What are we doing?" Frontman Joe Casey didn't write lyrics or listen to music for a year, guitarist Greg Ahee was similarly uninspired, and the Detroit band came this close to breaking up. Protomartyr's fifth album, Ultimate Success Today, came out in the summer of 2020 and its themes of death and disease felt like a prescient warning delivered a couple months too late.
Protomartyr - Formal Growth in the Desert (Domino)Ī happy Protomartyr record? Almost but it's definitely a great one
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