Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today
Ultra aggressive punk rock outfit, Protomartyr return with their most aggressive release yet in the form of Ultimate Success Today. This is the fifth album from the Michigan quartet, who formed in 2008, the second of which on Domino Records, where they signed to in 2017. Combining the experimental post-punk with bold guitar riffs and pulsating drums, the opening track ‘Day without End’ circulates around a mesmerizing, near transcendental saxophone works to tame the drowning effect of Greg Ahee on guitar.
Raincoats founder member, Ana de Silva is quoted saying ‘ there is darkness in the poetry of Ultimate Success Today’, and that comparison is certainly apt. Like most aggressive post-punk, the sound created reflects a post-apocalyptic world where it is always gloomy and never summer. This can be said for the themes in the track ‘June 21’ (ironically capturing the feelings which we may experience this summer of June ‘20. The stand out track for me is ‘Tranquilizer’ introduced by a growling bass guitar and humming sax, before a sonorous hammer descends with no mercy at all. It captures sounds echoed in influential post-punk outfits like Swans, Pere Ubu and The Fall, as well as garage rock of the mid 1960s (The Sonics and Count Five). The poetic quality in vocalist Joe Casey is apparent throughout this record, drawing on the styles of Ian Curtis, Mark E. Smith and Nick Cave.
The Nick Cave influence is something you easily recognise from early on, drawing on soundscapes that were evoked in Cave’s last two records: Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen. Success is done with an anthemic pathetic fallacy, it is as though you are caught in a flood and are trying to at least stay afloat. This probably works more as a weakness than a strength to the album, the drowning guitar sounds over accomplish to a degree, the overall feel of the record by making it as loud as possible, but then again this is done by a post-punk band, so it just goes without saying that loudness will feature.
Overall, Success is a success (of sorts) it delivers an aggressive but poetic sound that fulfils the contents needed for a post-punk record. But this record blends the Fall-esque dark romanticism with a pathetic fallacy that brings the rain then the flood.
