Salem: King Night

Salem
King Night
Rating: Grrrr

John Holland, John Donoghue and Heather Marlatt, the trio that make up Michigan/Chicago's Salem, have been building hype over the past couple of years with their tales of prostitution and drug abuse, spooky artwork, and countless EPs, singles, and remixes.  They have been clumsily lumped in with a few other acts in a niche-electronic genre, sometimes called witch house, drag, or haunted house, which basically takes the elements of 4AD label goth and merges it with the hip-hop beats of the dirty South.  On paper it sounds like a car crash, but somehow the disparate elements seem to work together.

It helps that Salem have three distinct personalities in the band, and each brings something different to the table, which allows their debut album King Night to flow seamlessly, yet provides enough variation that the listener is not bored.  Defacto leader John Holland has the more distinctive sound to his pieces.  His are the more formal, hip-hop based tracks, his voice heavily treated, his mollasses slow delivery struggling to keep up with the jackhammer 808 beats. 





John Donoghue leans more to experimental, audio assaults, keeping any type of vocals buried deep in the mix, almost as an additional instrumental touch.





While Heather Marlatt provides an almost ghostly Liz Frazer via MBV aesthetic to her goth-shoegaze tracks:





And when they all come together, as on the tracks "Sick" and "Killers" the effect is immediate and bracing.





Although they have dissimilar sounds, the closest comparison I can make to Salem would be Crystal Castles, who came out the gate with such a signature sound that I assumed it would be almost impossible to show much progression.  Thankfully, Crystal Castles has enough flexibility and talent with their sound to make something similar yet different on the follow-up.  I'm hoping that Salem follows that path, and doesn't succumb to being just a footnote in the hyper-changing electronic music field.  As it stands, King Night is a fascinating and involving debut, and it has lifted me from my end of the year music doldrums.

Rating Guide

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top albums of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not good; could have either been trimmed or polished.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.