Protomartyr – Under Color Of Official Light

Protomartyr – Under Color Of Official Light

If there is one “genre” I´ve never consciously listened to or was consciously attracted to, it must be Post-Punk. I never really got what that meant anyhow, beat punk music maybe? With Protomartyr, this label might be applicable, but for the most part I consider them to bring about great guitar driven music, punk and that other shenanigans aside.

For a band to captivate within only 35 minutes, one might think their songs must be well constructed narratives and/or instrumental avant-garde. But what the band does one Under Color Of Official Light can´t really fall under those criteria. Their music seems to be in the fashion of a get together or the most energetic set imaginable. With no song breaking the four minute mark, this one is a quick and powerful rendition of everything that is great about rock: A gruffy vocalist spewing out lyrical bliss paired with things on the brink of total nonsense, a driving guitar and drums that shoot with precision as they do with haste and feeling. 

“Maidenhead” just opens with a good amount of reverb noise until the guitars pierce through with a rolling lead that just invokes headbobbing. The lyrics declare emptiness in the most proficient way and the lines of “Shade goes up / Shade goes down” can easily be misheard as “Shit goes up / Shit goes down” without altering the meaning. And as the song fades away as beat as it came, the drums pick you up from the floor into “Ain´t So Simple”. The song recalls a fight with three figures in which the singer beats them as the instrumentals jeer and just breeze through.

The third tracks just keeps up with this energy and shows that the songwriting of the group is as sharp as a knife. While I would usually expect longer and more fleshed out songs, every track on here, even when only clocking under two minutes, seems to be a story in of its self, transitioning into the next one and keeping you engaged without thinking about what melodies just passed. And here the connection of the instruments and vocals can only be commended. While many rock bands only relying on the standard set up might seem to be the same idea reverted back and forth again and again – think the first recordings of bands like The White Stripes, Interpol or The Strokes for that matter – the guitarist Greg Ahee lends a new feel and way of playing to every song and vocalist Joe Casey flips the mood and vocals style the same way. “Tarpeian Rock” for example has a great bass lead with the guitar only giving distorted and reverby cadences and backing. Casey layers his vocals ones repeating “Tarpeian Rock” (I guess) and ones doing a kind of spoken word rambling. Further “Son of Dis” is a quick shot with another kind of rambling until the guitar peaks through sharply. Everything happening in only over one minute and then disappearing into the tension of “Scum Rise”. 

What Protomartyr have laid down here – I dare say constructed because it feels too natural to even imagine them writing their music down – must be applauded. I, in many ways feel that good rock music that does only rely on guitar, bass and drums is vanishing or being swallowed up by the harsher, more electric sounds all together. Under Color of Official Right may be highly nihilistic in it´s core and that from a band hailing from Detroit – a city which seems to be the capital of existential depression – makes sense. Still, their craft is a light in contemporary music and might already be one of the best records of this year. 

9/10