The Agent Intellect

The Agent Intellect is the third studio album by Detroit post-punk band Protomartyr, released on 9 October 2015. The first single from the album, "Why Does It Shake" was released on 14 July 2015, along with the formal announcement of the album's title, release date, cover art and track listing. On 25 August the band released the second single for the album, "Dope Cloud". on 28 September the band released the third single for the album, "I Forgive You". On September 28, 2015 the album debuted on NPR First Listen. The album is named after an ancient medieval philosophical questioning of how the mind operates in relation to the so-called active intellect, also known as agent intellect and other names. Release Critical reception The Agent Intellect was met with positive reviews from contemporary reviewers. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 85, which indicates "Universal acclaim", based on 20 reviews. The Guardian critic Kate Hutchinson thought: "This isn’t spiky postpunk like their last album – it’s more unhinged: they’ve swapped hooks for a dirgy epicness, distortion bulldozes through, sometimes flaring angrily, punctured by driving, truly affecting drums. As poignant as those images of a decrepit Motor City, once brilliant, now decayed." Sam Lefebvre of Paste magazine described the album as "an album of spindly bass, needling guitar and economical drums." Lefebvre further added "And yet, with Protomartyr’s inventive ensemble flare, it sounds like much more."