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The seventh LP from lauded Detroit post-punks Protomartyr follows on from the gloomy post-COVID malaise of 2023's Formal Growth in the Desert, with an artfully scathing concept album "reckoning with the horrors of our current moment" with vocalist/lyricist Joe Casey envisioning America as the titular Hotel Usona - "An aging hotel, each song a room haunted by its own troublesome guest." Recorded with legendary producer Dave Fridmann (Nick Cave, MGMT, The Flaming Lips) at his own Tarbox Road Studios in western New York, the band sonically pull from the Middle East and 50s exotica; culminating in a cacophonous barrage akin to a hardcore show taking place in a film noir lounge bar, while lyrically delving into far too current themes of fascism shrouded in the guise of nationalist pride, from the ICE deportation critique of 'Third Country' to the JD Vance skewering of 'Converts', the warped patriotism of 'Exalted Eagles', our increasingly dependent use of AI on 'Feed The Sewers' to the slow paralysis of modern life on 'Sounds We Cannot Hear', this is post-punk artistry at its most nihilistic, poignant and absurd, like if Ian Curtis, Mark E. Smith and Nick Save walked into a dimly lit, smoke-filled bar and only left by drinking themselves to death or burning it to the ground.
Gold vinyl LP + poster + zine + MP3 download code (indie exclusive)
Track List:
Side A
1. The Old Hotel
2. Sounds We Cannot Hear
3. Converts
4. Exalted Eagles
Side B
5. The Knife Dream
6. Feed The Sewer
7. Lavender - Gospel
8. Third Country
9. Checking Out