#trevor naud

[nofatclips]

Director: Tony Wolski [Live version here]

Track of the day // METZ - A Boat To Drown In

From the album Atlas Vending, out October 9th via Sub Pop.

[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?) –…

[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

[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

[vmonteiro23a]

UNDER THE RADAR: Protomartyr Announce New Album Formal Growth in the Desert, Share Video for New Song: Watch

UNDER THE RADAR: Protomartyr Announce New Album Formal Growth in the Desert, Share Video for New Song: Watch Protomartyr have announced their new album. Formal Growth in the Desert, the follow-up to 2020’s Ultimate Success Today, is out June 2 via Domino. Check out the Trevor Naud–directed video for the new album’s lead single, “Make Way.”

[nofatclips]

Live version of Bad Selection by The Armed from the EP Adult Swim Festival '21

[nosrac]

From the print series Blues Build the Temple by Trevor Naud

[dosartistas]

From the print series Blues Build the Temple by Trevor Naud

(vía Blues Build the Temple - 50 Watts)

[sinceileftyoublog]

Genghis Tron Album Review: Dream Weapon

(Relapse); Artwork by Trevor Naud

BY JORDAN MAINZER

On their first album in 13 years after a hiatus, experimental metal band Genghis Tron reinvent themselves. Yes, programmer and keyboardist Michael Sochynsky and guitarist Hamilton Jordan return, as does Converge’s Kurt Ballou as producer. And thematically, they return where Board Up The House closer “Relief” left off, as the entirety of the new Dream Weapon is inspired by the simultaneous beauty and sadness in the idea that the earth will outlive humanity. Yet, what’s not only immediately notable but actually shapes the whole album is their new vocalist, Tony Wolski, who croons instead of screaming like former frontman Mookie Singerman, and for the first time ever, a drummer, Nick Yacyshyn, who favors meat and potatoes pounding over drum machine blast beats. 

Take “Pyrocene”: Yacyshyn’s skittering beat and Wolski’s chanted and crooned vocals about an “uncontrolled burn” paint the picture of a band a little more subdued and controlled even when the world at large isn’t. The title track and closer “Great Mother” started from riffs Jordan and Sochynsky, respectively, wrote pre-hiatus but really take shape with the new band members. On the former, clattering drums back Wolski’s steady vocals, still pulling back for the buoyant guitar riffs you know and love from the band, but coming in at exactly the right moments to bring the song full-circle. And the rolling drums of the latter--especially in conjunction with Jordan’s riffs--sound like the conclusive, shattering storm that results in the death of humanity and brings Wolski to end the record by singing “No one to save (I can absolve).”

More underrated than the initial shock of hearing a band stylistically shift are the moments where they sound like their old selves exploring new territory. Instrumentals like panning, arpeggiated opener “Exit Perfect Mind”, ambient and droning “Desert Stairs”, and heavy, syncopated lurcher “Single Black Point” show a more post-rock, psychedelic side to the band that fit on this record and wouldn’t necessarily sound out of place on their previous two. “Ritual Circle” starts with drones and pulsating synths before introducing cymbals and beats and vocals, commencing a 10-minute epic that builds but never crashes, Wolski’s only screams midway through immediately tapering off in favor of a second-half krautrock jam. And “Alone In The Heart Of The Light”, built from an arpeggiated melody on a MIDI controller, and the first song Jordan sent to Wolski, brings the lyrical themes and the music together. Finding the perfect balance between steady and proggy, it’s the album’s aesthetic statement. When Wolski sings, “What we called home frees itself from harm,” you think of Dream Weapon as making a case for technology being the means rather than an end, one as a catalyst for further human ingenuity.

[ballardianmotion]

Trevor Naud

[hyperkulturemia]

Washington Monument in Cavern - Trevor Naud

[alotofboring]

Official Music Video for "Thin" by Stef Chura

[earstofeed]

Watch: Protomartyr - "Worm In Heaven"

Watch: Protomartyr – “Worm In Heaven”

Photo by Trevor Naud

The mundane has become the everyday battle we face while not confronted with the terrible realities of those overcome with disease. Songs that build on an emotional level that manage to hit a listener is what every musician strives to achieve with each new creation but yet so few manage to gain our trust. Protomartyrhas always been a band that never fails to mesmerize in…

[thebittersweetdistractor]

PROTOMARTYR  “A Private Understanding” [Official Video]

Directed by Tony Wolski & Trevor Naud. Detroit Post-Punkers Protomartyr will release their fourth full-length, “Relatives In Descent”, on September 29th via their new home label Domino, and today, they’ve shared lead single and album opener “A Private Understanding” which is a great post-punk track and one of the band’s most ambitious song ever. 

Though not a concept album, “Relatives In Descent” presents twelve variations on a theme: the unknowable nature of truth, and the existential dread that often accompanies that unknowing. This, at a moment when disinformation and garbled newspeak have become a daily reality (via Domino).

“Relatives In Descent” is out 9/29 via Domino. Pre-order it here.

[dustedmagazine]

Protomartyr — Ultimate Success Today (Domino)

Photo by Trevor Naud

Protomartyr have always sounded simultaneously urgent and dour, revelling in their clenched, morose ferocity. Though they’ve yet to release a subpar record, the sarcastically titled Ultimate Success Today laser-focuses both their song writing and sound into what may be their defining statement to date, especially apposite for these grim times. They’ve always had a pugilistic post-punk edge, yet the production on UST sharpens their attack into a savage, piercing roar that shares characteristics with multiple sub-genres of metal I’m not sufficiently familiar with to identify accurately (I’m sure Dusted’s resident metal expert, Jonathan Shaw, would be able to pin this down from a single listen). Let’s just say that Protomartyr 2020 is thrilling and brutally effective, creating the kind of hectic, clanging rush you can imagine on the soundtrack to an urban thriller, rendered with enough light and shade to prevent it from coalescing into a featureless blare.

There are two notable points of departure from previous Protomartyr albums. The first is the inclusion of welcome instrumental color from Jemeel Moondoc (alto sax), Izaak Mills (bass clarinet, sax, flute) and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello). The second is Joe Casey’s subtle development as a vocalist. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what’s changed for Casey this time around. He slurs and barks all over these songs as brilliantly as ever, throwing out plenty of memorably sardonic lines, such as “In that story of the happy thief / Who provided content to that ceaseless chill-out stream” (“The Aphorist”), “Summer in the city / Bringing me low” (“June 21”) and “Submit your face into the scanner!” (“Processed By The Boys”). Yet he seems to have sufficiently honed his vocal timbre and delivery to the point where there’s less of a nagging sense that he’s aping Nick Cave or Mark E. Smith.  

In terms of songs, UST has so many high points that fresh favorites take their turn on subsequent listens (it’s currently the fuzz-bass-driven “Tranquilizer”). Opener “Day Without End” sounds like a sleazy cop show theme, complete with greasy saxophone (echoed later on “Michigan Hammers”). It builds and builds, threatening to explode, only to cut off into silence. The explosion comes with stunning single “Processed by the Boys” and its incessant jabbing guitars. On early standout “I Am You Now,” the bass and guitar take turns in articulating the strident melody, then explode into ferocious distortion bordering on industrial metal. “June 21” features the vocals of Nandi Plunkett (Half Waif), who casts a shaft of light through the music’s murky backstreets, only for the song to burn out in a haze of woozy, pitch-bent guitars and the sound of buzzing flies. Details such as this help to carry the listener from one song to the next, such as the unexpected coda to “Modern Business Hymns,” one of several songs that include the album title in the lyrics. By the time doomy waltz “Bridge & Crown” and slow-burning single “Worm in Heaven” bring the album to a down-tempo close, all energy has been expended, nothing left to be said.  

Tim Clarke

[nofatclips]

A Private Understanding by Protomartyr from the album Relatives In Descent - Directed by: Tony Wolski & Trevor Naud