Hotel Usona

Protomartyr — 2026

“Protomartyr rarely give you the explosion you expect on Hotel Usona, and that restraint makes their view of a country in decline even more unsettling.”

Seven albums in, Detroit’s Protomartyr are still staring directly at everything ugly around them, but Hotel Usona changes how they deliver the blow. Joe Casey imagines America as an aging hotel filled with troubled guests, giving him nine songs to take aim at AI, fascism, warped patriotism, wealth, masculinity, and a general willingness to accept the unacceptable. On “Feed the Sewer,” he compares our embrace of AI to the troubling image of an “Eyeless Cog” consuming everything around it, while the band churns behind him like the data center Casey says inspired the song’s volume. What makes the record so effective is that Protomartyr rarely give you the explosion you expect. Instead, the arrangements slowly pull you closer. They are calculated, clean, and often surprisingly calm, which only makes them more unsettling. Greg Ahee’s guitar moves around the edges while Alex Leonard’s drums and Scott Davidson’s bass create a rhythmic tension that keeps tightening without always breaking. I think that restraint is the key. Hotel Usona doesn’t rage at the country burning outside its window. It sits there watching the smoke roll in.