The idea of Protomartyr front man Joe Casey singing a love song seems that outlandish that the year can surely only be 2023. This famously is a band whose last album Ultimate Success Today was thematically fixated with death and a man whom during the recording of it’s successor lost his mother after a long running illness.
And yet, the Formal Growth In The Desert‘s closing track Rain Garden is such a thing, Casey reminding himself that “Love has found me” (He got engaged in 2022) whilst the group’s signature post-punk melee is transformed into something almost beautifully washed out and deep.
Buttressed with the addition of acoustic and pedal steel guitars courtesy of his foil Greg Ahee, this is an album which for the most part negates any idea that the quartet will ever let go of their post punk roots, as For Tomorrow, We Know The Rats and Fun in Hi School show. But the dissolute opener Make Way, Elimination Dances and the finale prove that life is the thing that happens when you’re busy making music, a truth Joe Casey here has been unafraid to accept and then surface to anyone who’ll listen.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 