I’ve only just begun to dig into Protest the Hero’s new album Scurrilous — and by “just begun” I mean four listens, which for an album/band this dense is nothing — but so far so very, very good. Rest assured, these Canadians have neither made a go at the mainstream by dumbing down or gone so over-the-top wonky that they’re unlistenable; they’ve kept their Protest The Hero-ness intact while pushing things forward just that extra little bit.

Regular MS readers know that I don’t really ever listen to lyrics, and that’s certainly held true with Protest the Hero’s penchant for abstractness. But as I listen to Scurrilous I can’t help but be drawn in by the words… and then I come to find out that for the first time in the band’s history vocalist Rody Walker was left to pen the vocals instead of bassist Arif Mirabdulbaghi (on 7 of the album’s 10 tracks). Maybe Walker’s lyrics are more relatable, or perhaps they just strike a chord with me.

I bring up lyrics ’cause PtH just released new song “The Reign of Unending Terror” with one of those nifty-fifty lyric videos, great for people like me who have trouble deciphering lyrics at all. All that said above, I’ve watched this thing twice now and I still have no idea what the song is about. If I had to guess, I’d wager this is one of the three songs whose lyrics were written by Mirabdulbaghi, but that’s pure conjecture. Either way, the song is killer.

-VN