Protomartyr – Whelans – 15/11/25 – Live Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Protomartyr – The Button Factory – Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Protomartyr – Formal Growth In The Desert – Album Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Protomartyr – Button Factory – Live Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Protomartyr – Ultimate Success Today – Album Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2020/07/20/protomartyr-ultimate-success-today-album-review/

Protomartyr - The Agent Intellect

Protomartyr released their third album Agent Intellect in 2015.  Previous album Under Color of Official Right had mixed punk workouts with more melodic tracks and this album is similar.

Opening with The Devil In His Youth, this track is like a punkier Strokes, with its highly melodic guitar lines.  An almost spaghetti western style guitar introduces Cowards Starve, a track a little reminiscent of Come & See on their previous album.  Many of the first few songs barrel by without leaving a huge impression.  It's not until track 5, Pontiac 87 that we begin full immersion.  The track sounds like a harder version of the National, with Greg Ahee's guitar work oscillating between clean, crisp lines and fuzzed-out heavy riffs, perfect for Joe Casey to growl over.  Dope Cloud excels through Ahee's strong guitar work.  

Later, Why Does It Shake? makes a strong argument to be the strongest track here, with a danceable rhythm punctuated by incisive guitar riffs and a powerful vocal from Casey.  Ellen drops the intensity a little, with a brilliantly ghoulish melody before becoming drowned in noise towards the end of the song, and the album finishes with the angry Joy Division stylings on Feast of Stephen.

Overall, a bit of a hit and miss album from Protomartyr.  The highs are very strong, but there are too many second grade tracks. 

Protomartyr – Consolation EP – Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2018/06/18/protomartyr-consolation-ep-review/

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.

Protomartyr - No Passion All Technique

The debut album from Protomartyr came out in 2012.  It's a more straightforward proposition than subsequent albums, made up of lots of shouty songs with Greg Ahee's tightly wound post-punk riffs like In My Sphere, Machinist Man and Hot Wheel City amongst others.  They are not terrible songs, but fairly unremarkable.

When they deviate from this formula it's a lot more satisfying.  Three Swallows has a deeply yearning guitar riff, along the lines of The National.  Singer Joe Casey sings a fairly ordinary line "you used to be so beautiful" with a fair degree of pathos, giving it enormous resonance.  The whole thing is done and dusted in less than two and a half minutes.  Jumbo's feels like a centrepiece.  The longest song here, it opens with a wobbly-sounding riff which gradually gets more and more ragged, allowing Casey to bawl lyrics like "I will not have a drink" and "every night at Jumbo's" over it.  Other tracks such as Ypsilanti, Feral Cats have their tightly-wound riffs infused with just enough melody to keep you coming back.  Too Many Jewels stomps in with a hard-ass, squalling riff, while the fatalistic sounding How He Lived After He Died has a strong chorus that you could almost sing along to.

So nothing earth-shattering here but will be of interest to anyone who enjoys this band's music.

Best Albums of 2017 – Killian Laher

Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2017/12/12/best-albums-of-2017-killian-laher/

Protomartyr – Relatives in Descent – Album Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2017/10/06/protomartyr-relatives-in-descent-album-review/