Salome – S/T – CD/LP 2008
AAAArrrrghhh. This is ace. Salome are a thrilling three piece from Virginia, USA that sound like a super evil psychotic cataclysm amplified by black magic and blasted out the yawning anus of Hastur the Unspeakable. Fans of Khanate in particular will love this bleak and powerful down tuned suicide sludge. The vocals of throat terrorist Kat are quite something. Harsher than a year in a canvas tent on the Mongolian steppes, they grate and wrench and gurgle like a gutted Banshee drowning in holy water. Guitarist R. Moore and drummer Deal lay down ultra thick layers of filthy noise and thudding death rhythms that sound at once both sparse and minimal yet also full and imposing.
Opener ‘The Vivification of Ker’ wastes no time in shitting out an enormous black riff. Drums boom out and Kat ensures her reddened throat will be clustered with nodules for years. The guitar lines are simple and chillingly effective and the whole beast clocks in at just under six minutes. ‘White Tides’ is a desperately mournful and maliciously joyless chunk of post-rock meets old school doom sludge that hits the nail right on the head, deep into the shaking wrist of Jesus Christ. Nine minutes of electric misery. ‘Black Tides’ lurches along like a very slow Dark Throne number, weighted down with planet heavy power chords and drums like Bonzo on sedatives. Last track, the twenty minute plus ‘Onward Destroyer’ sounds about as cold as music can get – the unending pessimism and pain of a long and poverty stricken winter in a hostile land a long time ago; bare trees, frozen lakes, sharp black rocks and the cracked bones of starved children jutting out of the frosted ground.
I don’t know if this should be known as an ep or an album, there are four tracks here that stretch out to some forty five minutes in length. Whatever you call it, this is a mighty debut that chills the marrow and reminds one of the ever lurking presence of death in our often shit and inconsequential little lives. Salome present an impeccable collection of gorgeous post-sludgedoom noise that will stimulate the frontal lobes of any misery monger with an axe to grind and a head full of woe.
Label: Vendetta Records
Website: www.myspace.com/salomedoom
Scribed by: Adam Stone
