Protomartyr @ The Night Cat
A night of jagged post-punk, machine-pummelled noise and a crowd fully under the spell.
Words and Photos by Brittney McCarthy of BM Images
This was Protomartyr’s return to Melbourne after eight years away, with support from Naarm’s Npcede, and Twine, and Meeanjin’s Craning filling out the room before the headliner took over.
Craning opened in near-darkness and did absolutely nothing to make the room feel comfortable. It was tense between their discordant sounds and intermittent flashes of light briefly bursting to illuminate the band like evidence. Their debut Distress Tolerance only came out in February, and the record has been described as unsettling, shocking, and emotionally raw, which tracked with what they brought to the stage here. I’m still too new to their catalogue to tell you what songs they played, but I really liked the whole set, Isobel Tait’s voice was the thing I kept coming back to. Keep an eye on Craning.
Craning
Twine were next, and they’re a band I already had affection for after a pre-show listen. Twine are self-described as a wounded-country/barrelling-noise-rock band built around Tom Katsaras’ songs. With a sound that brushes against post-hardcore, aching violin, and a lot of tension between melody and abrasion. Live, they made more sense to me than they do on record. In the room, it all felt more cohesive, the band is made for performing live. Katsaras has a fantastic voice, and even when the violin tipped a bit more folky than I personally enjoy, it still gave the set a shape that stopped it becoming just another noisy guitar blur.
Twine
Then Npcede came on and completely changed the temperature of the night. Usually a trio, Npcede appeared as a two-piece, with brothers Victor and Roy Moore carrying the set without Zac Hellyer on stage. Their official bios place them somewhere between industrial, punk and electronic music; while reviews throw around EBM, gabber, noise and chaos; all of that fit.
I’d done a quick pre-listen and honestly thought they might not be for me. Wrong.
I am still struggling to find the right words for how excited and lit up I felt watching this performance. Overwhelming, machine-pummelled noise, and completely addictive. Victor’s energy seemed to vibrate through the room as he bounced between stage and crowd, dragging everyone into their world. Spleen has been on rotation since seeing them live, their set was the standout of the whole night for me. New fan, and I cannot wait to see them again when I don’t have a camera strapped to me so I can get in the pit.
Npcede
Protomartyr’s setlist moved as a shorthand map through the Detroit band’s catalogue, pulling heavily from The Agent Intellect and Relatives in Descent, while still reaching back to No Passion All Technique and closing the encore with Processed by the Boys. For fans, it was clearly a generous run, balancing older grit with the denser, more uneasy shape of their later records.
There is very little obvious theatre to the way Joe Casey holds himself as frontman, but that seems to be the point. The intensity is not in big movement or easy charm; it is in the straight stance, the language, the authoritative delivery of each lyric, and the way the band churns around him. I’ll be honest, I found myself standing slightly outside the pull that had clearly taken hold of the rest of the room. But the crowd was absolutely in it. There was a proper pit happening, more movement than I have seen at some hardcore shows, with people beaming up at the stage, completely drawn into Protomartyr’s world.
Protomartyr
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Protomartyr returned to Melbourne after eight years away, bringing Detroit post-punk to The Night Cat with support from Craning, Twine and a scene-stealing set from Npcede.