Album Review: Prostitute - 'Attempted Martyr'
Attempted Martyr is noise rock at its most rage-inducing; a battle-cry against the state of the world that asks you: we’re in a car that’s already hurtling off a cliff. What are you going to do about it?
There are few bands able to wow a crowd like Prostitute; who I first saw debut in the UK at a now-legendary Brixton Windmill gig with Bathing Suits in support ahead of the original run-through of Attempted Martyr. Now they’re back – explosive and super-charged, rapidly generating hype that has seen them praised by just about everyone in the music scene who dares to take them seriously beyond just laughing at the name. They’re a band with a unique style and sound and just simply incomparable to anyone else in the scene: where do you even start?
All Hail comes on and threatens to kick the door down – sampling noise-rock and punk from the Middle East and West Africa in grand bravado that crafts its own breathtaking sound; letting you know that it’s going to be big and it’s going to be loud from the opening track – there’s touches of metal in here too, and the band that is headed to Green Man festival could equally be suited for Arctangent just as much. Their initial UK shows sold out in a matter of hours; and listening to All Hail alone shows why. The Dearborn MI band – hailing from a town with America’s largest Muslim population, were founded by frontman Moe and drummer Andrew who tap into the identity crisis of being a Muslim in America post 9/11.
His honesty is apparent: “9/11 started a lot of xenophobia and Arab hatred and all that kind of shit. I hated being Arabic. I hated Arabs in general, just because people were hating me.” It feels like this crisis of self-hatred and radical terrorism all got poured into one song, adding on members Ross, Bret and Dylan for a Dearborn-native collective. It pours angst and forgiveness into the album that arrives at a time when things are going off the cliff and there’s nothing to pull you back from the edge: so the only thing left for Prostitute is to get everything out in song. It’s not an album defined by its self-hatred of youth; it is an album that grabs you and asks for a mission statement: vicious and spurring forth, Prostitute craft a record of super-charged fire and fury. It channels in the need to let that sense of rage and anger out somewhere at the world and All Hail counters the racist stereotype that many have associated with Arabic people post 9/11 head on: “I’m the motherfucker who cut down the towers // call me boxcutter, kaffir, heir to a whore,” and although it was originally written pre Israel’s genocide of Gaza, it feels like a rallying cry against the evils committed by those in power the world over. “True glory’s claimed through gore,” the song decries, in open critique of this claim.
M. Dada puts the spotlight of those claiming their moment of fame in the crowd – gunning for mass shooters who leave a trail of devastation in their wake. This person, Prostitute insist, “is king for a day, but tomorrow is a clown,” and tackle those who come forward with their ideologies head on. Anger then, is a heavy theme for Prostitute, channelling the rage of writing this album pre-Trump election in 2024 for his second term but aware of the atrocities of the present. It is a multi-cultural outpouring of anger here – there are members of the band who are Lebanese, Maltese, Polish and Roma. It’s a strong-anti capitalist statement piece that challenges your conceived notions of what the record is going to be about – if you asked a million people what this record would be about based on the band’s name you wouldn’t get a single correct answer. It feels tongue in cheek, the humour and the extremity of the situation by calling yourself that name. It’s not, as a result, just became a noise rock album for the band’s own voice, but here in Attempted Martyr, as they attempt to come up for air, they are answering: what happens if we dare to fight back? What happens if we went at the world that has left us behind?
The band give us an insight as to where a path with no resistance or resistance that is squashed out might lead – Body Meat, dystopia that suggests lighting yourself on fire and going out in a blaze of glory is very much not the honourable thing to do. It’s a suicide track that embraces the paranoia but constantly has you questioning it across the record, loud, bombastic - and Moe – whose surname isn’t available and purposely anonymous, lets out screams with the best of the genre. Even on the two slower tracks, In the Corner Dunce and Harem Induction Hour, where Moe comes up to allow the audience to breathe, still lets his rage felt at the audience. Their experience of coming up through Dive Bars is instantly felt in their hometown and the years of hardwork they’ve put into performing live before they’ve even polished this album as a second-go – released on a limited run back in 2024, makes it even sound more polished than it did before: but that’s not to discount the fact that it still feels quintessentially raw and honest across the board. It’s where the record switches themes slightly, tackling sexual desire and revenge, but sticking with the general theme at anger at the world. I
Attempted Martyr is consistently heavy throughout and rarely comes up for air: but the back-end tracks, and we’ll throw in Senegal there as well, give it the depth and emotional sucker punch that it needs to feel entirely two-dimensional. It’s a defiance and an outburst of energy that wears its heart on its sleeve, and lays bear the horrors of humanity on its audience and asks them to bear witness to a tragedy of unimaginable scale.
Words by Miles Milton-Jefferies
