Prostitute – Attempted Martyr
We seem to finally be seeing and hearing punk and other adjacent musics reaching a critical mass in response to a globally dangerous confluence of isms: capitalism, fascism, colonialism. There’s a new and steady march of artists like Kneecap and Bob Vylan following in the footsteps of legacy acts like Rage Against the Machine and Pussy Riot, themselves receiving new deliveries of flowers on the regular. And now we can consider Dearborn, Michigan band Prostitute against this backdrop and on a large scale, as the broad release of their debut Attempted Martyr positions them as sonic provocateurs of the highest order.
Led by singer/guitarist Moe Kazra and drummer Andrew Kaster, Prostitute spin and swirl their music in smothering fashion, a nonstop torrent of noise-rock that spans grunge, experimental, and even industrial. Dearborn has long found itself in the spotlight of American conservatives, its majority Muslim population a flashpoint of racist and anti-immigrant fervor since the 9/11 terror attacks, and the multicultural quintet originally self-released Attempted Martyr just prior to Donald Trump’s second Presidential election in 2024. Palpable, deep-seated frustrations reflected in the lyrics and playing of just-back-then seem only more pointed and relevant in the here-and-now, as we observe wildly hollowed-out geopolitics less than 18 months later.
Attempted Martyr focuses on a deceptively complex character inspired by Kazra’s struggles growing up. A zealous prince, he’s absorbing the energy of hate-filled systems directed at him and violently mirroring it back out tenfold, but he also seems conflicted about wanting or needing to lead such an existence—nihilistic at worst, disappointed and a little sad at best. For example, Kazra and Kaster write a diptych rendering extremes of the concept of women as empty vessels, from a new meaningless partner every day (“Harem Induction Hour”) to the singular object of unhealthy obsession (“Joumana Kayrouz,” named after a well-known Michigan personal injury attorney, Lebanese like Kazra). They also give us “Judge,” a whiplash-inducing track informed by Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, obsessed with false gods and other unworthy motivations to act that reinforce Prostitute’s insistence that their name is the verb form.
But even were the words to be divorced of meaning, these eight songs are steeped in the ways of the tornado, the whirlpool, the siren. Attempted Martyr fucking howls from first second to last, full of screaming synths, relentlessly rising guitar drones that drop listeners off cliffs, and dissonant riffs with their roots in Sonic Youth and dark metal derivatives. Kazra turns simple phrases like “I know” and “I buy and sell” into pained and fearful mantras; combine those with his poetic if vulgar twists on language, and his antagonist subject seems to be reciting madcap narratives. In the relatively subdued “In the Corner Dunce,” “And still I feel these hands/Wrapped around his frail/Antennae of a neck” falls somewhere between a creepy love note and a confession. In the massive opener “All Hail,” “Let a fool rush in, any and all I’d devour/I’m the motherfucker who took down the towers” reads like a terrorist’s manifesto.
Supported by samples and melodies from across North Africa and West Asia, surely there will be pearl-clutchers who make that last psychic equation with Attempted Martyr. And yet for decades, white guys from Ministry to Muslimgauze have appropriated the sound and imagery of both oppression and resistance for our entertainment and their profit. Prostitute are just out here seeking karmic and financial reparations, telling the same tales from the point-of-view of actual participants in the fight. Attempted Martyr merely demands we sit and rest in our discomfort during their story time.
Label: Mute
Year: 2024/2026
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Prostitute : Attempted Martyr
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