Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right

After the ferocious onslaught of debut album No Passion All Technique, Protomartyr's follow-up, released in 2014 sees them mix things up a bit.  Maidenhead opens with Greg Ahee's clean, lean guitar lines, perfect for Joe Casey to growl rather than bark his lyrics.  They are inclined here, and all over the album to cloak the songs in noise if proceedings get a little too... musical.  Ain't So Simple is almost poppy with a herky-jerky rhythm and a catchy chorus, while the equally catchy Want Remover could be a really noisy Interpol.  Ahee's guitars are bursting with melody this time out on the likes of Trust Me Billy and the almost danceable What The Wall Said and I Stare At Floors.

The pure noise assaults of old are kept to a minimum with only Pagans and Son of Dis ending up as 70 second rants.  The tension-filled Scum, Rise! is a more highly evolved version of these. 

The sparse, stop-start rhythm of Bad Advice points the way towards future material.  Nobody quite spits the line "it was bad advice" quite like Casey.  All the songs here are short, sharp shocks, with only three of them breaching the three minute mark.  Penultimate track Violent takes the intensity down a notch or two, allowing a breather before the final snarl of I'll Take That Applause. 

So a significant leap forward from the debut and Protomartyr's first really good album.