The Agent Intellect
Consider the urgency with which Protomartyr has approached everything —three albums in three years, each more extraordinary and rewarding than the last. This music is inherently, unassumingly high stakes. This October marks the release of The Agent Intellect, their third and finest work to date. Named after an ancient philosophical questioning of how the mind operates in relation to the self, it’s an elegant and often devastating display of all that makes Protomartyr so vital and singularly visceral an outfit.
The third album from Detroit post-punk outfit Protomartyr ups the ante considerably from the first two. Their grim but compelling songs highlight a place where violence hovers constantly at the periphery, where peace and hope gradually curdle and turn ugly, and the desperate people who once clung to them eventually fall prey to their worst impulses.
Protomartyr debuted in 2012 with No Passion All Technique, but was introduced to far more people two years later with Under Color Of Official Right, released to acclaim in 2014 by Hardly Art. Its sound was anxious post-punk (thudding percussion and guitars that vacillated between airy reverb and serrated distortion),…
Michigan’s premier post-punks reflect a frightening and cruel world in which the physical body and the intellectual mind are both dejectedly fallible.
Under Color of Official Right was excessively polished; Casey strove for conventional vocal melodies and hooks with…
It’s irresistible and so eloquently convincing that despite their claims of failure, Protomartyr are unstoppable.
"The Agent Intellect" is a concept in medieval philosophy related to the division between form and matter in the human soul, and while such notions don't play much of a part in the lyrics on Protomartyr's third album, 2015's The Agent Intellect, it's not hard to imagine lead vocalist and lyricist Joe Casey as a philosophy professor at some Midwestern college taking the stage at a tiny bar off-campus and delivering a series of rants and/or free associations as a student band whips up a thick fog of guitars and drums that pours out behind him.
Protomartyr's second album for Hardly Art, The Agent Intellect comes steeped in taut post-punk - it feels like the band are grappling with bigger questions.
Review of 'The Agent Intellect' by Protomartyr, the Detroit band's upcoming LP comes out October 9 on Hardly Art. The single "Dope Cloud" is now streaming.
The band’s third album explores darker, more personal material than ever before – to truly affecting effect.