Salem
“Hound”

• If you pretended this were by another band, based on the first few moments I’d say you’d think it was the Knife.

• Yo, I gave my dog a bath today. He was outside playing with the neighbor’s dog. And the neighbor’s dog is still outside, even though it’s raining! So I’m playing this song really really loud so they’ll maybe wake up or something.

• Unless they’re not even home.

• This band Salem is my favorite new band, and their album is my favorite album of the year. I like how there’s stuff there, but it’s mostly just awesome sounds. (By the way, Hell Hath No Fury is my ninety-first favorite album of all-time.)

• Sometimes I think about how Salem is supposed to represent rape gaze, and how the one guy offered speed to a reporter. As if reporters don’t do drugs? Who cares. I don’t even care about the prostitution backstory. It doesn’t really matter.

• Salem sounds amazing. I love how the songs are like Knife songs, and sometimes they’re like bass heavy like atmospheric songs. And sometimes they’re like rap songs. I think they evade being a minstrelsy act by intent.

• This song in particular captures the best parts of the band. It has the one main guy singing. The other guy when he sings he does the raps. And the girl isn’t on this one, but when she is she does a really good job.

• If you haven’t heard Salem before, you should really listen to this song. It seems like it ends with about thirty seconds left, and then it starts over, which I love.

I don’t know. I really don’t. I was talking with a buddy yesterday about Salem. I think they really represent the truest sort of post-rock as I understand it. I’m really really frickin’ bored with rock music. Guitars are boring as shit. Go make a record as good as Sgt. Peppers or Source Tags and Codes or Double Nickels or something and then—what? OH YOU CAN’T.

Salem, and a lot of other bands sure, make music that’s kind of dependent on rock music like being alive is dependent on defying Mosaic Law. That rock music existed is a sort of precondition for their existence, but not in an especially noticeable way. It’s like, the ladder has been pulled up for years and now people are making chairs and toothpicks and go-karts out of it.

Why do people keep making four-on-the-floor rock music? What is the fucking point? I get so bored listening to guitar music. Even good rock, like Japandroids or something. They’re only thrilling when they disorient me with non-rock-sounding figures and emotions.

Salem fucking destroys, and that’s why unless Kanye’s album is really super frickin’ good, this will be my favorite album of the year.

UPDATE
Hah. I just realize I said that like it means something. My favorite album of the year as a verbal construct means literally nothing. I’m also sick of that sort of bullshit. So I apologize. I’m sorry.

This Salem band, though, they just sound so good. I get really sad when I think about all the other bands that make music, and how most of them will never sound as good as Salem. Ofc, this is all undergirded by a giant, parenthetical TO ME, dig.

Dude, seriously. The dog outside is now barking in time to this song. What should I do?