I must admit I'd been getting bored with Protomartyr. The band's brand of precocious post-punk was increasingly seeming too smart for its own good, and too impersonal to really care about. Add to that recent stylistic detours by the band, and a listener like me could be forgiven for being ready to jump ship. That all changed when I played Ultimate Success Today, the group's newest record. The release, out on Friday via Domino, is lively and inventive. And it is proof that there remain tricks up the sleeves of this lot still.
"Day Without End" starts like something from Isaac Hayes' Shaft soundtrack, while "I Am You Now" mixes up bits of The Fall with The Jesus Lizard. For the parts that are familiar here, the "pretty" "June 21" is a nice change of pace, as is "Worm in Heaven", the languid Nick Cave-ish closer. For all that mixes up the Protomartyr formula, the punchier bits on Ultimate Success Today are the best. "Michigan Hammers" and "Tranquilizer" are brutish and full of the sort of menace we heard throughout this band's earliest numbers. Thankfully, this sort of thing prevails here on this record, enough so that the album is the band's most consistent in years.
Ultimate Success Today is out on Friday via Domino.
More details on Protomartyr via the band's official Facebook page.