SALEM - King Night

The first time Michigan act SALEM came to this writer’s attention was with their ghostly cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Philadelphia’, which started circling around in 2008. Titled ‘Brustreet’, it took the already fairly-bleak original and slowed it down to create an atmosphere of eerie, windswept desolation. It was pretty stunning. Since then, the trio have released a couple of EPs as well as a number of unofficial Gucci Mane remixes, gaining more and more hype along the way. They’ve also been subjected to one of the more vicious backlashes of recent times, which has centred on a number of factors: allegations of dubious cultural appropriation or even racism, the hints of sexual violence in their lyrics, or indeed the footage of their dreadful live performance at Levi’s Fort Fader which quickly went viral and became a source of much ridicule. In other words, there’s a hell of a lot of context surrounding King Night, SALEM’s first long-player.

The sound and aesthetic that the band have developed over the last couple of years has become more fully realised here, with higher production values courtesy of Dave Sardy (Marilyn Manson, Oasis). It’s an undeniably unique sound – even their harshest critics would admit as much – that takes influence from such disparate genres as shoegaze, crunk, goth, industrial, juke and footwork: the end result is a dark, engrossing vortex dominated by distorted synths, cavernous bass and stomach-churning rhythms. Combined with the barely discernible lyrics and their ambiguous associations, the atmosphere created is one of creeping, under-the-skin dread: unsettling, tense, even outright disturbing at times. It’s been pointed out elsewhere that King Night is sort of an aural equivalent to a low-budget horror movie or, if you’re willing to go there, a snuff film. (Indeed, it makes perfect sense when you watch the clip for non-album track ‘Dirt’.)

While that’s inevitably not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, the real source of controversy for many seems to be the ‘rapping’ that features on ‘Trapdoor’, ‘Sick’, and ‘Tair’. On these tracks Jack Donoghue’s lines are slowed down to a drugged-out Gucci-like drawl: to some it sounds disrespectful, patronising, or amateur, but cries of ‘racism’ are patently ridiculous. It’s just another interesting ingredient as far as SALEM are concerned – “No-one would ever question us for reversing a guitar or something,” Donoghue pointed out to XLR8R earlier this year. In any case, the tracks that feature his rapping are only part of the story here, vying for attention with dark, swirling soundcapes as well as atmospheric, shoegaze-influenced tracks like the re-recorded ‘Redlights’ and ‘Frost’. Even by the standards of all that comes before it, closing track ‘Killer’ is supremely disquieting, its sinister vocals submerged under positively evil-sounding synths. If you’re looking for a soundtrack to Halloween, look no further.