Protomartyr's 'Hotel Usona' Is a Baroque, Horn-Haunted Triumph of American Dread
The conceit is a hotel. Each of the nine tracks on Hotel Usona is a room with its own troublesome guest — the band’s own framing lists them plainly: the slow paralysis of modern life, AI, deportation, warped patriotism, violence, JD Vance, “and the often unbearable weight of becoming a father anyway.” Joe Casey painted the sleeve himself.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Recorded with Dave Fridmann at his own Tarbox Road Studios in western New York, with guitarist Greg Ahee credited as co-producer. Paste’s Luke Cartledge describes the result better than a spec sheet could: Fridmann’s production is “not so much ‘capturing’ the band Albini-style as dousing them with extra fuel and allowing them to burn as ferociously as possible without searing the tape.” Exclaim!’s Eric Hill hears the rhythm section as “the persistent, motorik pulse of the bass and drums like fog rolling off the Detroit River.”
The Spatial Dynamics: The new element is brass and reeds — Fridmann’s son Jon contributes horns. The Line of Best Fit’s Devin Birse, scoring it 9/10, singles out the saxophone: “It haunts the songs, adding a noirish heft that reframes Casey as a weary detective sipping whiskey by the hotel bar.” Hill’s name for the overall register is the right one: “a baroque post-punk for the early, early-morning crash.”
Standout Performance
Alex Leonard, whose drumming Paste describes as “impish, kinetic inversions of classic post-punk rhythm,” and which the band’s own notes say Fridmann rendered “more tangible and terrifying.” Cartledge also flags Ahee’s work on “Converts” as “one of the most distinctive and emotionally resonant guitar arrangements I’ve heard all year.”
Why It’s Certified
Because the expansion is real, not decorative. Birse locates the achievement precisely: what makes this “the band’s best work in over a decade isn’t purely the production. It’s how it interacts with the band’s evolved songwriting. The songs just seem to unspool.” Hill’s closing line is the invitation. Hotel Usona is “the sound of a band settling into their own skin, creating a space that’s uniquely theirs and generously sharing the key.”