“Old Hotel” opens with pensive guitar chords before launching into a cathartic apotheosis, trumpets cutting through articulate and bouncing percussion executed brilliantly by Alex Leonard. Proffering seismic breakdowns superimposed over Casey’s sardonic wordplay, “Misery isn’t emptiness – just an order to be filled.” Order as in a requisition, order as in the opposite of entropy. Filled as in sorted, filled as in occupying.

Notoriously well-read, Protomartyr infuse their lyrics with heavily literary elements, as in 2014’s “Maidenhead”, which draws from Hangover Square by British writer Patrick Hamilton. Their lyrics have always been worth close attention, and the composition of the tracks in this project makes room for focus there. You’ll be rewarded for listening closely. The breakdowns usually follow like an aftershock, an eruption of harmonizing chaos that drives the messages home.

“Sounds We Cannot Hear” does this especially well, and beautifully. “Two bombshells hit the villa” is a disturbingly stark example of casual appropriation of the language of war in Western pop culture, laying bare our desensitization and complete removal from the wider world of reality, in a realm ironically called “Reality TV”. These are the sounds we cannot hear, the weight we cannot bear; the corruption embedded in our everyday language, in our movements, in our media, and the systems we perpetuate without even realizing it.

The penultimate track, “Third Country,” closes us out with the verse, “Has it always been that the rich and death embrace, Like two old fools in love?” The bridge of this track explodes in satiating conclusivity after a tense build. “Checking Out” follows through on the foreshadowing of ‘Sounds We Cannot Hear’ about the creeping numbness that comes from feeling helpless to ameliorate the chaos around us: “Pull the covers over, I’m checking out.” It’s a sentiment many may feel tempted to indulge in amid our current circumstances. It feels safe to say, however, that complacency is, at best, corrosive.

Most of the songs on this album seem to occupy an eerie, in-between space; an intentionally uncomfortable shifting of the weight between both legs, suspended in uncertainty. There is a persistent feeling of discomfort, as though the album itself is calling us toward some kind of reckoning. While the lyrics often feel cynical and defeated, the musical breakdowns and instrumentals seem to argue for an underlying persistence of hope.

Full to the brim with haunting punk ballads, the artful garage punk band of over fifteen years marshals elements of chaos and entropy against jazz harmonies and volatile bass lines. Hotel Usona flaunts a duality of haunting lyricism and intensive breakdowns punctuated by pacing and experimental moments that open space for reflection. Ultimately, the album is more eerie in tone than its predecessors, like a distant alarm sounding, trying to amplify the sounds we cannot hear.

order Hotel Usona by Protomartyr HERE