Detroit’s Protomartyr today share a new video for their rollicking single ‘Don’t Go To Anacita’ – watch the video HERE. The song is one of the most anthemic the band have written, and is one of the highlights off their critically acclaimed new album, Relatives In Descent. Singer Joe Casey described the fictional town of Anacita in a recent interview with NPR Music. “From touring around America you get to see all sorts of municipalities,” says Casey, “and I picture Anacita as an affluent suburb that looks quaint and respectable but maybe has too many cops for the population size. Like, maybe the next town over is a little more down-on-its-heel and the border between the two is stark in its sharpness.”
The surreal video, inspired equally by obvious touchstone ‘Stairway to Lenin’ by Zbigniew Rybzynski and R.E.M.’s ‘Imitation of Life,’ was directed by Yoonha Park, who said “I wanted to make a visual that recreated the feeling of scanning over a large, densely populated image, like a Breughel painting or Where’s Waldo?. I wanted to convey a feeling of false progress and the idea that every new horror that meets us is part of a never-ending continuum. Joe Casey’s lyrics are chock full of references both contemporary and classical, often in the same song. It creates a really unique visual field that conveys the exact flavor of dread I find myself feeling a lot lately.”
The band finishes up their US tour this weekend and will be heading to Europe and UK next month.
Watch ‘Don’t Go To Anacita’ HERE
Praise for Relatives In Descent:
“Political, environmental, epistemological, social, familial and individual anxieties fuel the latest songs by Protomartyr, a band from Detroit that has been reclaiming the jagged, muscular dissonances of post-punk for 21st-century America.” The New York Times (Album of the Week)
“Sensational, bloodied but unbowed post-punk” The Guardian 5*
“Over the course of four full-length albums, the Detroit-based band has produced a collection of lyrically dense, deeply philosophical (and usually very loud) songs that grapple with some of life’s thorniest questions: What does it mean to be human? What is truth? What is the nature of good and evil?” NPR Music
“Masters at articulating a detached sense of anger and disgust” Uncut 8/10
“Is there any guitar band quite as raw as Protomartyr? Closer to Swans or Glenn Branca than their peers, Protomartyr stack simple sounds into a churning, impenetrable wave of kinetic energy.” SPIN
“Detroit post-punks hit a new peak – their best record yet” Q 4*
“Adventurous, confrontational and surprising, ‘Relatives In Descent’ will make you think even as it makes you feel” The Big Issue 4*
Relatives In Descent is available to buy on vinyl, CD and digital download. Buy: Physical / Digital / Stream