Protomartyr: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

December 4, 2015 by ROBIN HILTON The Detroit band Protomartyr makes loud, screeching rock that’s more thoughtful than thrilling. It only takes a few seconds of the group’s brightly lit Tiny Desk performance for things to get pretty deep: “False happiness is on the rise,“ enigmatic frontman Joe Casey deadpans. “See the victims piled high in a room without a roof.“ The song “Why Does It Shake?“ is from the band’s profound, poetic, often grousing third album The Agent Intellect, a title derived from Aristotle’s theories about human thought and how ideas move from the possible to the tangible. (Cue sound of brain exploding.) Casey never cracks a smile and barely moves throughout this performance, hiding behind dark sunglasses and looking sharp in a gray suit, hands in pockets. It’s almost bewildering at times to watch someone so composed deliver such sharp narratives, backed by squealing guitar noise. But that’s part of Protomartyr’s allur