Protomartyr’s seventh album, ‘Hotel Usona’, is presented as a fiercely bleak and politically charged portrait of the United States. The review argues that the Detroit band remain distinctive among post-punk acts because their world-weariness feels grounded in experience, while Joe Casey’s increasingly furious lyrics confront national decline, immigration policy and social brutality.

The album’s nine tracks retain the band’s abrasive post-punk foundation but broaden it with horns and strings, drawing on classical and jazz influences to intensify its sense of impending collapse. Songs including ‘Exalted Eagles’, ‘Feed the Sewer’ and ‘The Knife Dream’ combine anger with atmospheric unease, avoiding simplistic slogans; produced by Dave Fridmann and released on Domino on 25 September 2026, the record is described as bleak but well suited to the band’s uncompromising style.