Protomartyr Announce New Album 'Hotel Usona,' Share Lead Single 'Sounds We Cannot Hear'

Protomartyr are back with news of a seventh album. Hotel Usona lands September 25 via Domino, and the Detroit post-punk institution kicked things off with the lead single “Sounds We Cannot Hear” — a tense, wire-taut cut built around Joe Casey’s half-sung, half-muttered meditation on the paralysis of modern life, paired with a music video featuring comedian Nate Varrone.

The record was recorded with Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev) at his Tarbox Road Studios in western New York, and its concept is a good one: America as a decaying hotel, with each of the nine tracks exploring a different room and its own warped guest. The tracklist runs The Old Hotel, Sounds We Cannot Hear, Converts, Exalted Eagles, The Knife Dream, Feed the Sewer, Lavender – Gospel, Third Country, and Checking Out — a shape that tracks with the band’s knack for turning a single conceit into a genuinely varied, room-by-room record rather than a one-note bit.

Perhaps the best endorsement so far comes from an unexpected corner: Iggy Pop, who called the album “Wagnerian” and singled out Casey specifically, noting he’s “blessed with a beautiful voice that you want to listen to, but he stays perverse enough to keep things interesting.” Hard to argue with the character reference.

Protomartyr will support Hotel Usona with an extensive run of North American and European dates stretching from this fall into February 2027, including stops in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and Prague. Hotel Usona is out September 25 on Domino.

Source: Stereogum