“This Snow Crash thing—is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?”

“What’s the difference?”

~ Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992)

Although Stephenson’s pioneering novel may be better known for its establishing the term “metaverse,” Snow Crash is less concerned over prescient predictions of future technology than with themes of language, religion, and virality. It is a work in which these three concepts are inextricable, in which the novel’s titular virus is spread through replication and mimetic duplication.

While I would never suggest lyricist Joe Casey drew inspiration from Stephenson’s novel, he certainly seemed attuned to similar observations that the Snow Crash writer made while composing his influential work. Both Casey and Stephenson display acuity in identifying the intertwining of technology, linguistics, and religion. For example, “Boyce or Boice” directly references Samuel Morse sending the first human communication through an electric device, a telegraph message which read: “What hath God wrought?” By quoting the book of numbers 23:23, Morse initiated electronic communication with a declaration of religious wonder and divine authority. Language, religion, virality. However, it is not just the recurrence of this motif that Stephenson’s book shares with Joe Casey’s lyrics, it is also that both display how often these are exploited for the accrual of power and dominance. It is not just that these concepts are inherently inseparable, but that others will manipulate and exploit these points as mechanisms of control.

The album art of The Agent Intellect features an image of Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to become baptized and who was instrumental in the rise of Christianity throughout Europe, and consequently, the world. During the rise of Fascism in Italy in the 20th century, the National Fascist Party used rhetoric that drew parallels between Constantine and Mussolini to legitimize the Duce’s ascendancy to power. After the signing of the Lateran Pacts by the Italian State and the Catholic Church, the archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster, claimed that a second ‘religious pact’ had been established, echoing the Edict of Milan enacted by Emperor Constantine, which legalized Christianity in Rome and which led the state to transition into the theocratic power of the Holy Roman Empire. The Fascists were already in control, having political reign and control over the means of communication (one of the first acts of Mussolini’s was to take over state run media, both print and broadcast, ensuring no dissenting views could be expressed against the Party), but the Lateran Pacts ensured that the Fascists also gained legitimacy through the Church. All fronts of power were seized: language, religion, and virality.

The Agent Intellect offers many personal observations, reflections of Casey’s about personal traumas, the cynicism and disillusionment that comes from life’s myriad of failures. However, these are not brooding songs of self-pity. These are anthems of discovery, each song a small approximation of Plato’s Cave and the moment in which illusory order and meaning are revealed as no more than shadowplay. These epiphanies come in many forms: whether in witnessing a riot enacted by the self-proclaimed pious, the stymieing affects of gentrification, or in the observing the decline of a loved one with a terminal disease. The world depicted by Casey is not one falsely promising happiness, nor even a greater understanding of why the world is as it is. It might seem harsh, even tragic, but it does not feel false. The Agent Intellect is about pulling back the veils of illusion that lead one to blind complacency and obedience. This leaves the characters of these songs disillusioned in both senses: angry and saddened, yes, but also no longer under the thrall of the deceptive mechanisms of control that had governed their lives. There is truth in these songs, or perhaps more accurately, a valuing of truth beyond any comforts that could be offered by the false promises of materialism, capital, or religious dogmatism.

With all that said, let’s not aggrandize the scope of this record. No matter how powerful, thoughtful, or moving the songs of Protomartyr are, it is not enough to usurp the hold language, religion, and virality have over our lives. After all, what is pop music but an extension of these very concepts? The cult of personality, the idolatry of pop and rock stars, is synonymous with the primacy of the religious leader, the viral engineer, and the authority whom controls the means of communication. Yet, what Casey shows is something beyond using these means to control, but to scrutinize, to critique, to identify falsity. A rock band cannot not save us (does anyone really harbour such dated naive idealism anymore?). However, that band (or author, or poet, or filmmaker, or philosopher, etc.) may point us towards something, an idea or a concept that allows us to identify the exploitation governing our lives, the fictional world of replaceable ideals of comfort and satiation we inhabit, and challenge us. Will we meet that challenge or remain in the shadowplay?

In this podcast Adam and Dave talk with Joe Casey of Protomartyr about the making of The Agent Intellect, the lyrics to several of the songs on the album, making the album artwork, Visiting Windsor and Detroit growing up and more.

Protomartyr are currently touring in celebration of The Agent Intellect’s 10th anniversary with a series of shows. There is also a vinyl only live album available called Pin Eyes Under the Alder from their website made up of live recordings from recorded at Pickathon in 2016.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interzonepod.substack.com