“In coming from a bankrupt city as dramatic as Detroit, Protomartyr attract one prevailing, flimsy comment – how their dejected-sounding post-punk could only come from that deserted place. Iggy & The Stooges are thrown in to bolster the idea even though it pulls it apart when you consider how Protomatyr’s music is so wiry and dry and clearly more at home in 1970s Manchester. Comparisons to The Fall”
“Protomartyr are no longer slaves to the post-punk revolution”
“Loaded with poetic post-punk dirges, Protomartyr's Relatives In Descent is the Detroit band's most dynamic and well-written release yet.”
“There’s a line on the new Protomartyr record, ‘Relatives In Descent’, that proves that no other band can rival their ability to conjure such bleakness – but inject hope all the same. “In the old city/In abandoned shells/On a desolated edge,” croons frontman Joe Casey on ‘Night-Blooming Cereus, “amid the death of all things/Not under the scornful eye or the corporation’s hand/Only in darkness does ”
“At its best, Relatives in Descent makes guitar music feel radical again, capturing both timely and timeless anxieties. ”
“The fourth album from the literary Detroit rock band Protomartyr is sinuous and allusive, dense and at times dizzying. It contains a constant sense of unease about the world and its future.”
