Protex– Tightrope [IMPORT] – New LP

Protex– Tightrope [IMPORT] – New LPOften, when bands reform like this, decades later, the record seems mostly something to do before a reunion tour so the band is not just running through the oldies, but what do I know anyway, and clearly, Protex recorded this album because they knew they had good songs and it was time to share them with fans, the old ones and the new. Maybe enough time had passed so they didn't have to sweat about delivering a comeback album. But that's what they did.

Often, when bands reform like this, decades later, the record seems mostly something to do before a reunion tour so the band is not just running through the oldies, but what do I know anyway, and clearly, Protex recorded this album because they knew they had good songs and it was time to share them with fans, the old ones and the new. Maybe enough time had passed so they didn't have to sweat about delivering a comeback album. But that's what they did. Fans of power pop take notice.

Protex were one of the first-wave punk bands outta Northern Ireland. Like contemporaries Rudi, The Undertones, and so on, theirs was a sound heavy with power pop and garage rock influences, with maybe a bit more of the latter manifesting in Protex’s sound. Thirty-nine years down the road and this sounds like it could’ve come out right after their debut single, “Don’t Ring Me Up”—maybe a smidge less raw in production, but the same laid-back vocal delivery, garage structures, and pop sensibilities are in full display. Fans of their old stuff and newer converts with more fluid preconceptions of “punk” will find much to their liking here. –Jimmy Alvarado (Razorcake)