Hotel Usona

by Protomartyr

Hotel Usona cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 25 September 2026
  • Label: Domino
  • Country: United States
  • Length: 45:23
  • Community rating: 4/5 from 54 ratings

Artists on this release: Scott Davidson, Dave Fridmann, Greg Ahee, Alex Leonard, Jon Fridmann, Joe Casey

Album Notes & Community Reviews

Recorded between August and October 2025 with producer Dave Fridmann at Tarbox Road Studios in western New York, 'Hotel Usona' is the seventh studio album by Detroit post-punk quartet Protomartyr, released via Domino. Structured as a dark concept album, frontman Joe Casey envisions America as a decrepit, haunted hotel where each of the nine tracks occupies a room plagued by modern anxieties—ranging from existential paralysis ('Sounds We Cannot Hear') and artificial intelligence ('Feed the Sewer', 'Lavender – Gospel') to deportation ('Third Country') and warped patriotism ('Exalted Eagles'). Musically, guitarist and co-producer Greg Ahee expands the band's angular noise-rock and gothic post-punk palette with 1950s exotica, Middle Eastern intervals, and Ennio Morricone-esque swells, bolstered throughout by Alex Leonard's tumbling percussion and Jon Fridmann's doom-laden horn arrangements.

Genres

Descriptors: atmospheric, conceptual, political, male vocalist, existential, talk singing, rhythmic, alienation, melodic, conscious, noisy, dystopian, guitars, storytelling, dissonant

Tracklist

  1. The Old Hotel (4:21)
  2. Sounds We Cannot Hear (5:26)
  3. Converts (4:06)
  4. Exalted Eagles (4:22)
  5. The Knife Dream (5:59)
  6. Feed the Sewer (4:37)
  7. Lavender – Gospel (4:11)
  8. Third Country (4:38)
  9. Checking Out (7:43)

Credits

More from Protomartyr: full discography