Salome - Terminal

Great day in the morning, this music is downright U-G-L-Y, the highest compliment I can afford! Virginian sludge doom is just exactly what’s professed on the band’s second full-length, Terminal. Typical ‘murky-Virginia-swamp’ comparisons abound, this album resonates like a slow, plodding cerebral hemorrhage that refuses to kill you, yet makes its presence known though obligatory spurts of pounding and prodding.

First off, vocalist Katherine Katz is a female vocalist that, for once, manages to retain her femininity by simply sounding like a female, yet she has the fortitude of a hundred men when delivering her distinct growling that is, happily, enunciated very well. Unlike other female vocalists (who shall remain mercifully nameless since I wish to spare them some dignity) Katz relies on her strength and powerful tone to carry her over some intense doomy metal that isn’t really ground-shaking in the innovation department, yet creates a brilliant tone that doesn’t get boring of predictable through over an hour of fine music. Her utterly awesome style is what makes her several beats above the typical female singer vying to be George Fisher.

The tunes on Terminal are so heavy and foreboding that you can quite easily get emotionally caught up in the chords and epic song structures. I admit to going in with mild trepidation when I see a band with 10-minute songs in this day and age, but when I’m happily surprised by resonance and strict attention to detail it makes for an even more viable experience. There’s much to be had in here, especially in tracks like “Master Failure”, “The Message” and “The Witness”, but there’s nary a slim picking in the bunch. I also admit to smiling wide at the end of “Master’s Failure” where the drums sound so disturbingly like the intro to Slayer’s “Raining Blood”, only to flow of into a very non-Slayer tunnel of solemnity. “Epidemic” (no Slayer, I swear) has an almost tribal feel to the music without crossing over that invisible line to the point of non-recognition. What this Virginian trio has managed is to create an incredible spectacle of sound that is both disturbing and powerful. It’s ugly music without the burden of rudimentary devices.

I absolutely implore all of you to sludgey-doom types to seek out Salome and engage one of the better bands in the genre, simply because since 1967 every damn band on the planet wants to be Black Sabbath or Blue Cheer. The bar was seemingly set too high too early, but when a band like this comes along and shocks the system with a modern flair for a distinct and enjoyable guitar-driven down tempo, you thank the great Mother of all things that that bar was so high so long ago.

Release Date: November 9, 2010
Label: Profound Lore Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  The Message
2.  Terminal
3.  Master Failure
4.  Epidemic
5.  An Accident of History
6.  The Witness
7.  The Unbelievers

Total playing time:  1:06:55

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*Comments:

Reviewer: Chris

February 14, 2011