#formal growth in the desert

[beatsforbrothels]

Protomartyr - Graft Vs. Host

[wantremover]

the death-filled rider came up on a spavined horse and trampled through our home but we didn't do anything, cos no one owes anyone.

MAKE WAY

[rastronomicals]

7:14 PM EDT July 1, 2024:

Protomartyr - "3800 Tigers" From the album Formal Growth in the Desert (June 2, 2023)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[konvoluted]

There’s 3800 tigers in this world ,

But there’s far too many of you

[senorboombastic]

Do Not Miss - October 2023

Words: Andy Hughes (Photo Credit: Trevor Naud) Once upon a time, you had to venture to venues and look in the back of magazines (remember them?) for gig listings. Maybe Teletext had listings too? Not sure, I was too busy playing ‘Bamboozle!‘… With the recent invention of the internet however, finding out what’s on at a music venue near you can be done with the click of a mouse (remember them?) –…

[spilladabalia]

Protomartyr - Elimination Dances

[scoop16]

Saturday night vinyl

[taybrits]

@blogovision 2023:

9. Formal Growth In The Desert -Protomartyr

"Anti-pose, pay bills, no one claps, no laughs Jaw sore, silver packs on the floor as I pass And I chew up all your time"

©Trevor Naud

Last year's #9:

Hour of the Ox by Katie Kim

So far:

10. I Though I Was Better Than You by Baxter Dury

11. Living Human Treasure by Italia 90

12. Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd by Lana Del Rey

13. Blooming by Donna Candy

14. Θύματα Ειρήνης by Πυρ Κατά Βούληση

15. Tracey Denim by Bar Italia

16. CACTI by Billy Nomates

17. Rotten Bun For An Eggless Century by mui zyu

18. The Land Is Inhospitaple And So Are We by Mitski

19. Quaranta by Danny Brown

20. i’ve seen a way by Mandy, Indiana

[sinceileftyoublog]

Protomartyr & Stuck Live Show Review: 7/13, Thalia Hall, Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“Tap calls the time,” Joe Casey sang last Thursday at Thalia Hall as Protomartyr performed “Elimination Dances”, a standout track from their new album Formal Growth in the Desert (Domino). Like many of the band’s best songs, its inspirations are obscure, this particular instance taken from a game in a 50′s dance manual: Once you’re tapped out, you stop. Given the Detroit punk band’s generally bleak nature, it’s not hard to find the referenced game a fitting metaphor our everyday life, trying to survive in a capitalist hell world. But consider that Formal Growth was written in the context of the death of Casey’s mother, recorded in an actual desert at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, TX with producer Jake Aron. Casey didn’t aim to create something or find meaning out of emptiness, per se, but answer the question, “Once tap calls the time, how do the rest of us move on?” Luckily for him, and for us, there’s music.

I’ve seen Protomartyr a bunch of times. I never would have thought to describe one of their shows as life-affirming, but Thursday’s was, from the younger segment of the crowd’s persistent moshing to the unexpectedly anthemic quality of the band’s performance. The live version of Formal Desert opener "Make Way” traded the studio version’s openness for a much mightier, choppier stomp. The crowd reframed the anxiety-riddled namesake refrain of Relatives in Descent chugger “The Chuckler”--“I guess I’ll keep on chucklin’ till there’s no more breath in my lungs”--as an absurdist call to arms. The normally stoic Casey performed the entirety of The Agent Intellect’s “Why Does It Shake?” on the barrier between the stage and the crowd, about as close to spirited as he’ll ever be. Even the band’s chosen setlist seemed authored specifically to amp up the crowd. I mean, they could have played “Let’s Tip The Creator”, which chides the way tech billionaires treat art as a commodity, just as much of a charged bummer as the rest, but its subdued timbres are harder to dance to. Protomartyr’s instead taking the Gang of Four route, favoring, say, the skittering drums of “Fun in Hi Skool”. 

As this was the last show of the tour, Casey joked, “We’ll either be so tight, it will be the best show of our lives, or so tired it’ll be the shittiest.” Guitarist Greg Ahee, bassist Scott Davidson, and drummer Alex Leonard at least made sure it wasn’t the latter, of course. But it was the addition of The Breeders’ Kelley Deal as a full-time touring member of the band that elevated older songs even more than it provided faithful renditions of those whose studio versions she was on. Her voice subbed for the “I have arrived” echo on Under Color of Official Right’s “Maidenhead”, and her backing harmonies beautifully contrasted the ugliness of “Pontiac 87″. And her guitar tones on "Polacrilex Kid” seemed lifted straight from the Hawaiian twang of Last Splash’s “No Aloha”, an inspired replacement for the studio version’s pedal steel. Casey clearly remains eternally thankful. He once said in an interview with NPR, “Basically, the band comes up with amazing music and it's my job to not screw it up too much.” It’s all I could think about as I watched him sip from a Budweiser can, nodding like he was impressed while watching Leonard hammer away during the extended intro of “Jumbo’s”. If he sings on “The Author”, “Time's your enemy / Every gift you see will be taken for sure,” live, he demonstrates the unspoken flipside: Enjoy the gifts while you can.

Local post-punk band Stuck, who I saw open for Metz last winter, was the perfect primer for Protomartyr. They, too, sing about the effects of the decline of America, albeit with a nervy, wiry yelp that recalls bands like Devo and Squid. Lead singer Greg Obis was quick to point out how honored the band was to open for Protomartyr, one of his favorites. It’s easy to see the influence on their new album Freak Frequency (born yesterday). A track like “Fools Idol”, its descriptions of “violence unending” and “the boss descending,” is very Casey-esque in its brand proclamations. And like Protomartyr now, Stuck is that much more loud and urgent live, foregoing, for instance, the studio acoustic instrumentation of “Scared” for all electric jitters. However, unlike those of the perennially offline Casey, Stuck’s songs are riddled with technology-induced worries. At Thalia Hall, drummer Tim Green’s disorienting use of sample pads was an effective mirror for Obis’ admission he’s “distracted all over again” on “Loose Your Cool”. Green’s motorik drums and Obis’ and Ezra Saulnier’s sharp guitarwork reflected the pain of similar cycles of smartphone despair on “Time Out”. The almost hilariously plodding pace of “Planet Money” made a circus out of the song’s targets, the pundits who comment on the health of the economy as if it truly affects the everyday life of our most vulnerable. And then there was set closer “The Punisher”, the only song that saw Obis sing harmonically, sans paranoid screams. On the track, he deftly summarizes the absurdity of the January 6th insurrection, facetiously winking and nodding, “The future never looked so bright.” Even if the world that Protomartyr and Stuck envelop does everything in its power to suggest otherwise, upon leaving Thalia Hall on Thursday, you could, perhaps, agree.

[beatsforbrothels]

Protomartyr - Let's Tip the Creator

[mxdwn]

ALBUM REVIEW: Protomartyr – Formal Growth In The Desert

https://music.mxdwn.com/2023/06/20/reviews/album-review-protomartyr-formal-growth-in-the-desert/

[complexdistractions]

Protomartyr : Formal Growth In The Desert

Detroit’s Protomartyr have been leading the way in the modern post-punk movement, starting with their debut album, 2012s No Passion All Technique. Each album improved and evolved the sound, which consisted of jagged guitars, a solid rhythm section, and lead singer Joe Casey’s poetic lyricism delivered in the voice of a soothsayer booming society’s doomed future on a city corner. The band really…

[rastronomicals]

1:55 AM EDT April 30, 2024:

Protomartyr - "Elimination Dances" From the album Formal Growth in the Desert (June 2, 2023)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

--

[dustedmagazine]

Protomartyr — Formal Growth in the Desert (Domino)

Photo by Trevor Naud

Formal Growth In The Desert by Protomartyr

It’s been three long years since Detroit post-punk band Protomartyr released their last album, Ultimate Success Today, described in our Dusted review as “thrilling and brutally effective”. During the intervening period there’s obviously been the COVID pandemic and its attendant horrors, but Protomartyr front man Joe Casey has also tragically lost his mother, then their home was broken into multiple times. Suffice to say, Formal Growth in the Desert is not a jolly listen.

Protomartyr have never been a jolly listen, but their music has largely excelled on the strength of Casey’s sardonic lyrics and barked vocal delivery, combined with the inventive backing of guitarist Greg Ahee, bassist Scott Davidson, and drummer Alex Leonard. Here the band is also joined on many of the songs by pedal steel player William Radcliffe, whose additions are largely subtle and textural. Musically it feels like business as usual, but there’s a spark missing, as if the events of the last few years have pummelled the life out of the band, resulting in a frustratingly uneven record. 

The album’s two singles, “Make Way” and “Elimination Dances,” both sequenced early on, have the kind of attack that Protomartyr have made their own, thereby offering an appealing way in. However, as early in the track list as second song “For Tomorrow,” an off-putting pub-rock feel finds its way into proceedings, Ahee riffing high up on the guitar neck. “Graft vs. Host” features a hypnotically eerie atmospheric backing, but the lyrics alluding to Casey’s mother feel a little too on-the-nose to stir a visceral emotional connection. Though “The Author” opens sounding almost like a demo, its conclusion features some of the record’s most interesting instrumental interplay. The record closes on a high note with one of its finest songs, “Rain Garden,” which is shot through with the kind of striking cinematic tension that’s lacking elsewhere. 

Tim Clarke

[senorboombastic]

Introducing '60 Minutes or less': A new podcast from Birthday Cake For Breakfast - First episode with Protomartyr!

Words: Andy Hughes I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin… New year, new us, eh? We’re pleased as punch to reveal Birthday Cake For Breakfast has entered the podcast world and what better way to open up ‘60 Minutes or less‘ than with our first guest – Joe Casey, vocalist in Detroit post-punk outfit Protomartyr! I caught up with Joe in October 2023, ahead of a sold out headline show…