“Treason is crime.” It’s a semi-mantra that stumbles off the tongue of Joe Casey in a very Mark E. Smith–esque slur on “Ain’t So Simple,” the second song and mission statement by proxy on Protomartyr’s sophomore record, Under the Color of Official Right (Hardly Art). From the outset of “Maidenhead,” it’s sonically apparent that the Detroit quartet have, in an effort to evolve, consciously dumped the green brashness that defined their debut, last year’s No Passion All Technique, yet still retain an allegiance to the scrappy, no-collar advances and statements that are ingrained in their Motor City existence. The clack and clang that tethered them closely with comrades like Tyvek has been smothered diagonally. Now, the exhaust burns motley shades of dried blood as Greg Ashee’s visceral guitars transform into clouds of sublime ether.

Before the album barrels headlong into the primal stomp of “Tarpeian Rock,” a song that rallies for traitors to be thrown from the “rock,” Protomartyr abandon most things associated with home altogether. Sure, it’s punk in spirit, and “Son of Dis” proves a point, but those minimal riffs seem to inhale and exhale. They actually shimmer like Echo and the Bunnymen or build into hypnotic post-grooves befitting Th’ Faith Healers. Casey and Ashee seem joined at the hip, and it’s their push and pull on the dynamic “Scum, Rise” that makes tension a huge part of the record’s arresting catharsis. It’s hard to tell which they prefer, indifference or revolution. Leaving it up to the listener is an ambiguous pleasure in Under the Color of Official Right. There are songs here like “I Stare at the Floor” and “Trust Me Billy” that rattle in the same sphere as the ramshackle slacker pop of the ’90s, but there’s also an almost violent element around the crevices (albeit completely absent from the beautiful trailer park prom–themed “Violent”), coiled to maim. It’s a sound that is near perfect emblem for Detroit. At once they seem to be building up and keeping afloat on the hope and promise of the next more intelligent generation, even when it’s all crumbling down around that beacon.