Protomartyr unveil new single "Worm In Heaven"

"Worm In Heaven" is the closing track from Ultimate Success Today, and arrives after last month's lead single "Processed By The Boys".

The new release arrives with a video directed by Trevor Naud, featuring a series of film images stitched together. Naud says, "The idea is a sort of dream chamber that has lured its creator into a near-constant state of isolation. She lives out her days trapped as the sole subject of her own experiment: the ability to simulate death. It is like a drug to her. Everything takes place in a small, claustrophobic environment. With soft, yet sterile visuals. Perhaps a strange combo to reference, but imagine the cover of the Rolling Stones’ Goats Head Soup and the character of Carol White in Todd Haynes’ 1995 film Safe."

Ultimate Success Today will be Protomartyr's first LP of new songs since 2017's Relatives in Descent. They recorded it at Dreamland Recording Studios in upstate New York. It's co-produced by the band and David Tolomei (Dirty Projectors, Beach House), and mixed by Tolomei.

Guest contributions on the record include Nandi Rose, aka Half Waif (vocals), Jemeel Moondoc (alto sax), Izaak Mills (bass clarinet, sax, flute), and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello).

Lead vocalist Joe Casey says of their forthcoming album, "The re-release of our first album had me thinking about the passage of time and its ultimate conclusion. Listening to No Passion All Technique again, I could hear myself hoping for an introduction and a long future, but also being cognizant that it could be 'one and done' for us. So, when it came time to write Ultimate Success Today, I was reminded of that first urgency and how it was an inverse of my current grapple with how terribly ill I’ve been feeling lately. Was that sick feeling colouring how I felt about the state of the world or was it the other way around?"

Casey adds, "This panic was freeing in a way. It allowed me to see our fifth album as a possible valediction of some confusingly loud five-act play. In the same light I see it as an interesting mile marker of our first decade of being a band - a crest of the hill along a long highway. Although just to cover my bases, I made sure to get my last words in while I still had the breath to say them."