Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today Review
Protomartyr have created a record that feels uplifting despite its themes of illness, pain, and apocalypse. Casey is less of a harbinger of doom, more a bard of those sick of the state of things — a true vox populi type.
Protomartyr have never been afraid to hit hard and they’ve built a catalogue of atmosphere and grit designed to unsettle their listeners. The Detroit quartet bring an end to their first decade with Ultimate Success Today - an infomercial for the end of the world and a call to arms against the powers containing us. For an album written a year ago it manages to perfectly capture the mid-pandemic zeitgeist, perhaps revealing that the anger and fear society feels has been bubbling under for a while. This latest output feels more subtle in part, though the raucous attitude remains.
Relatives in Descent’s closing number, ‘Half Sister’ left us with a feeling of hope that truth may potentially reach us and potentially free us from pain. ‘Day Without End’ directly references and immediately destroys that belief in truth. Joe Casey cautiously attempts to remind himself that he is prepared for the worst and has planned for an eventuality where he “could not be reached”. The repetition of the album's title, “Ultimate Success Today”, acts as a segue, reinforcing the aggressive relentlessness of capitalism, at which point Casey’s quiet confidence fades and panic starts to build. The vocal agony of “Dull Ache Turned Sharp” is mirrored by the moody bass which initially creeps up and taps us on the shoulder, before poking us in the chest and finally stabbing us right through the heart. The turbulent alto sax scattered throughout the closing sequence adds to the hysteria. We are right back in Protomartyr’s apocalypse, hope can never last long, and it’s better they show us this in the opening track.
The furious ‘Processed By the Boys’ does not challenge us to consider whether there will be an end. Rather, it asks us to consider what the end will be like. They offer cosmic and violent imagery before a bridge ultimately confirms that these ideas are “Fiction.” The first chorus changes the direction to directly engage with the Trumpian nightmare and the rampant spread of populism. The end of the world is closer to a man-made mess than an alien invasion or out of control animal. Humans are their own fantastic demise, so reads the thesis statement of the song. The anger in this chugging number acts as a reminder that everybody has a responsibility to stand up against violence and hate perpetuated by ”the Boys” in power — a message particularly poignant in light of recent world events.
The album centres around a consistent illness and mid-life crisis felt by Joe Casey; he is unsure whether the sickness is caused by the America around him, or whether the world feels unhealthy because of the sickness. The powerful, screeching guitar-laden ‘Tranquilizer’ deals with Casey’s fear of illness and mortality and a need for numbing the “Black Bile in the mind” despite the knowledge the relief is temporary and that pain will always return. ‘June 21’ features a guest vocal from Nandi Rose and acts as a further, but more subdued, exploration of that melancholy. The erratic bass chases us through our “Summer in the city” as the expectation of the season depresses us and brings us low. The explorative bass also features heavily in ‘Michigan Hammers’ a blasting injection of adrenaline to the album’s mid-section, that brings riffs to overwhelm us. The energy attempts to create a brotherhood across Michigan, a call to uprising in spite of the hopelessness against power as lamented in previous tracks. The run of ‘June 21’ to ‘Modern Business Hymns’ is musically commanding, and lyrically a journey in itself that tracks through depression and despair, inspiration in the end times, and a developing intent to bring down Capitalism in its entirety.
Protomartyr are a little bit of an understated hero of the world of post-punk. You can feel the well-rehearsed influences throughout the record: Casey’s vocals are a well-established Cavesque baritone that are inescapably comparable to Mark E Smith. However as an overall, the band’s atmospherics transcend The Fall and enter the rarely reached sonic space of Joy Division. You can similarly hear the effect Protomartyr have had on their contemporaries and it’s no surprise Idles and Shame both cite them as an influence, and there are parts of Ultimate Success Today that may as well be part of a new Black Country, New Road track.
This doesn’t mean to detract from their originality. It’s rare that a band can create something with such an anthem quality while singing about the end of the world and police brutality, as they did in ‘Processed by the Boys’. The slow trudging of ‘Worm in Heaven’ effectively closes chapter five, the catastrophe section of their 10 year drama. In Casey’s own words, the record acts as a “possible valediction of some confusingly loud five-act play”. The second single sticks out as a clear highlight, a unique punk ballad to be played specifically at Joe Casey’s own funeral. It leaves us, similarly to Relatives in Descent, with a feeling of hope, but this time it’s a little more grounded.
Protomartyr have created a record that feels uplifting despite its themes of illness, pain, and apocalypse. Casey is less of a harbinger of doom, more a bard of those sick of the state of things — a true vox populi type. It’s an album of uprising, written in 2019 but perfectly pitched for 2020 with plenty of furious riffs, crashing drums and looming bass to boot. Protomartyr channel their anger to dismantle the hopelessness, originally accepted in ‘Day Without End,’ through the course of the album, until closing with Casey’s own funeral song ‘Worm in Heaven’. If this is the end of the first five-part drama, we should feel inspired to stand up and fight for change and we should feel hopeful that a new landscape comes for the band’s next play to celebrate.