by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
For over a decade Protomartyr’s music has embraced a sort of desolation, an eloquently delivered guide to death, despair, and reflections from the bottom of the barrel. They’ve managed to do it without a sense of heavy-handed dread though, painting in sepia tinted colors, peeling back unfiltered tension with a poetic resolve and a minimalist design that skews nimble. Making a spiritual home in the cracks, gutters, and dimly lit outposts of the world can be taxing though, and as the story goes, following the pandemic the band had doubts about their future, the feelings of futility that comes with aging as a full time musician. Protomartyr have always seemed destined to navigate through dark times and the hopeless recesses of their minds, it’s a natural part of their oeuvre. This time around though, there’s an unlikely brightness, an open ended feeling of hope fighting to shimmer that leads them to Formal Growth In The Desert.
The band’s sixth full length album is drawn from life’s very real low points, both personal and general, namely the death of Joe Casey’s mother and the worldwide misfortune of the pandemic. In what could have been a collection of songs buried in doom and gloom, Protomartyr return with a new resolve, the idea that grief can lead to new beginnings, celebrating those lost by understanding their hopes for your happiness. We’re still here and there’s life yet to live, no matter how hard that notion may be to process. The tilt toward positivity remains subtle though, this is still the world through the lens of Protomartyr and these aren’t sunny times. It’s enough to believe that things can get better, to believe love abounds, to give a new ground to Casey’s lyrics, he doesn’t have to seize them with full on urgency. That change is reflected beyond the lyrics as well, as Casey wasn’t the only one fighting to continue.
Greg Ahee (guitar), considered “the architect” of the band’s sound has spoken in interviews about a hesitatation to keep the band afloat “post” pandemic. He didn’t feel motivated and reportedly didn’t play guitar for the first year of relative lock-down. Eventually Ahee began to work on music for short films, finding inspiration in film scores, most notably the music of Ennio Morricone and the composers contributions to Spaghetti Westerns. Through these shared experiences and sentiments, Protomartyr pushed forward with a new focus on expanding their post-punk music in a cinematic way, providing an arc for Formal Growth In The Desert. While captured with a widescreen array of instrumentation, Ahee, together with the band’s unwavering rhythm section of Scott Davidson (bass) and Alex Leonard (drums), add emphasis via synths and lap steel. It’s another layer of texture, a layer of additional nuance to support the varying moods, an adventure of sonic expanse for a band that’s always been impeccably dialed in. From harsh attack (“3800 Tigers”), to amorphous drifts that lead into primal crescendos (“We Know The Rats”), to shuffling immediacy (“The Author”) and shadowy atmospheres (“Graft Vs Host), the band’s raw pummel is given a boost in dexterity, equipped to pull our sensibilities in every direction. Protomartyr have always felt like a veteran band, even their earliest days, but they’ve cemented that status by retaining a personal air even during moments of grandiose arrangement. The record is sweeping without feeling as such, we’re still sitting and staring into the bottom of our glasses, yet things don’t feel so empty.
The fact that the record opens with “Make Way” into “For Tomorrow” isn’t just clever sequencing, it’s the treatise of the album, we need to move forward at all costs. The dark presence that comes in the form of familial death has already wreaked its havoc, but a new day has dawned. Casey understands this, even as difficult as it may be, reminding us “you can grieve if you wanna, but please don’t ruin the day.” It’s a simple statement but an important one, we’re not forgetting the love and spirit of those lost, but we can’t waste away as a result. Easier said than done, and “For Tomorrow” plays like the flip-side to the coin, it’s an acknowledgement of “Make Way,” but with the realization that the weight of grief keeps us tired, keep us reeling, keeps us off our axis in an attempt to process. The narrative arc is delivered like steps toward recovery, time spent in Casey’s head, but with a universal relatability. From the epiphany of “Elimination Dances,” Casey becomes occupied by time in relation to profound occurrences in nature (ancient rock formations), arriving at the relatively brief space on the continuum that we take up in comparison.
There’s exasperations of inefficacy (“Let’s Tip The Creator”), delightful distractions that blur the lines between the animal kingdom and baseball’s future (“3800 Tigers”), and jabs at commodification and the de-humanization of workers (“Fulfillment Center”), each providing narrative breaks in the script. These side stories are all related, painting the world around Casey. His poetic description of society’s impenetrable fog remains important even within the gaps of his own grief. Yet, the album’s core focus remains at hand, plucked and pulled further on the devastating “Graft Vs. Host,” with an eventual push toward self-improvement that comes with “Polacrilex Kid”. The eventual enlightened comes at the end via “Rain Garden,” a song that makes a pointed decision that loneliness doesn’t have to consume us, that love is both deserved and welcomed, and it could just be the difference we’ve been searching for.