Protomartyr — The Agent Intellect (Hardly Art)

October 08, 2015  /  Michael T. Fournier

dustedmagazine:

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Let’s face it: the industry expectation is that rock music is for, by, and about young’uns. Protomartyr bucks these expectations. Singer Joe Casey is dealing with the unsexy reality of losing parents, the long look down the decline slope of what comes after age 40. Sonic precedents abound: it’s easy to hear traces of the Fall, Joy Division, Girls Against Boys, but The Agent Intellect is not retro. Rather, the record exists in and ruminates on the now, be it under the well-heeled dystopian umbrella of technology, or, alternately, the crushing mundanity of loss. The weight of this jumbled present is overwhelming, occasionally contradictory and senseless.  Rather than back down from the precipice of decline and confusion, Protomartyr has reported the situation as they see it in The Agent Intellect, an uncomfortable, honest and ultimately excellent record. 

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On the new Protomartyr record.

tags / hardlyart, protomartyr, detroit, dondelillo