Relatives In Descent

A private understanding. A decaying house. A golden tower. A hollow chuckle. Relatives in Descent is full of these strange, lingering images—philosophical and visceral, cerebral and bodily. On their fourth album, Protomartyr swap Midwest greys for California warmth, but the result is anything but sun-drenched. Instead, it’s their most expansive, unsettling, and downright brilliant work yet.

Produced by Sonny DiPerri (Animal Collective), the album stretches the post-punk foundation the band built in Detroit into something knottier and more impressionistic. Violin threads bleed between tracks. Guitars slash and recoil. Joe Casey’s baritone ricochets between the cryptic and the concrete, smuggling heavy questions into everyday imagery: legacy, decay, truth, the flickering absurdity of existence. “She’s just trying to reach you,” he mutters at both the beginning and end of the album—like a signal lost in static.

There’s a perverse beauty to these songs. “A Private Understanding” lunges and lurches with broken elegance, while “Windsor Hum” hums with unease, its title borrowed from a real-world sonic anomaly. “Don’t Go To Anacita” satirises suburban complacency; “Up The Tower” is a dark fairy tale about a gold-hoarding troll. Somehow, none of it feels forced. These aren’t concept songs so much as collapsing sermons—etched with sarcasm, unease, and a kind of bruised resolve.

Despite its bleak palette, Relatives in Descent was one of the most acclaimed records of 2017—earning accolades from The Guardian, Paste, Loud and Quiet, and more. Pitchfork weren’t wholly convinced, calling it thematically scattershot. But that tension—the sense of sprawling, shifting weight—feels purposeful. The album doesn’t present answers. It leaves you with questions, ringing out long after the final line.