Detroit’s own Protomartyr officially began with the signing of a lease for a small practice space in the Russell Industrial Center on Jan. 1, 2010. In the 16 years since, practice spaces have come and gone, but they have yet to be able to find a suitable replacement for their alarmingly lumpen lead singer. Try as they might, Protomartyr are stuck with Joe Casey.

While Protomartyr’s origin story is as clichéd a showbiz story as you'll hear (old drunk pays young men to be his entertainers), their longevity in a music scene obsessed with things like beauty and talent is, quite frankly, baffling. With the announcement of the seventh(!) album, Hotel Usona, the triumvirate of hooded desiccated ghouls who run CREEM from a boiler room in an abandoned Kohl’s agreed that now, after both hype and interest have waned, would be a good time to check in with the band.