Stream Protomartyr's The Agent Intellect on NPR Music First Listen

October 9th marks the release of The Agent Intellect, Protomartyr's third and finest work to date, via Hardly Art. Today, you can hear the new album via NPR Music First Listen. Named after an ancient philosophical questioning of how the mind operates in relation to the self, the new album is an elegant and often devastating display of all that makes Protomartyr so vital and singularly visceral an outfit. Protomartyr is, and has always been, Joe Casey (vocals), Greg Ahee (guitar), Scott Davidson (bass), and Alex Leonard (drums). 

Over the course of several months, Ahee waded through more than a hundre>d song fragments until he reached the bottomless melodies of "I Forgive You" and "Clandestine Time," the inky depths of "Pontiac ’87" and titanic churn of "Why Does It Shake?" Lyrically, Casey is at his most confident and haunting. He humanizes evil on "The Devil in His Youth," and, amid the charred pop of "Dope Cloud," he reassures us that nothing—not God, not money—can or will prevent our minds from unraveling until we finally fade away. We are no one and nothing, he claims, without our thoughts. 

The band unexpectedly shared the song "I Forgive You" earlier this week, and it was accompanied by annotated lyrics on Genius. It's a great example of the synesthetic nature of Casey's lyrics. 

The band will be embarking on their first US tour in support of the new record starting off with two hometown record releases shows before traversing east to New York for CMJ. Don't miss seeing the band at their live, pummeling best. There's not a frontman pulpiteer quite like Joe Casey in music today. All current dates can be found on the tour page. 

Limited copies of The Agent Intellect are available in the shop, and all LPs come with a lyric zine and fold-out poster.