Released: 2020
In the flesh Joe Casey cuts an unlikely figure for someone who leads a band as seminal as Detroit’s Protomartyr; with the air of a disheveled university lecturer, he prowls the stage glaring like a man who had his parking space occupied earlier by an organic coffee truck.
The noise they make though, what noise. Having recorded their classic 2011 debut All Passion, No Technique in a single four hour session, the quartet have earned themselves more leeway since. Their fifth Ultimate Success Today established Casey as a tortured mid-life crisis set to music, his singular drawl just part of why this visually unassuming group remain standard bearers for one part of the city’s musical heritage.
Michigan Hammers was them at their most orthodox, a skittering guitar riff, skin tight rhythm section and Casey booming out across the icy wastes. Frequently leaving interpretation up to the listener, he was typically vague on meaning at the song’s release, saying just “It’s probably about that and mules, syndicates, too many parking lots, camaraderie, the ideal happy hour, failure, and takin’ what they’re givin’ ’cause we’re workin’ for a livin’ until we start takin’ it to the streets. Or something like that.” He might not look like a rock n roll star, but he knows what matters, and how to make that sound like you should care too.
The Voice Of Unreason 