Salem

King Night (IAmSound, 2010) refined the approach. The bouncing electronic leitmotif of King Night conceals the anthemic Christmas melody by a church choir. A mournful synth melody winds its way through the distorted booming percussion of Asia, like a Morricone requiem performed by a noisy dream-pop ensemble. Frost weaves a fragile Enya-esque elegy around intricate syncopation and soaring synth lines. The quasi-religious Release Da Boar is two feathery slow-motion tsunamis of droning voices hurling towards each other during the early moments of the Final Judgment. A warped rap washes ashore the lulling electronic tide of Sick, attended by a multitude of girls of the Pacific islands. Even the much weaker rap of Trapdoor cycles over itself to the point that it starts sounding like a transcendent mantra. They have a unique knack for turning the simplest of melody and the simplest of rhythms into a majestic hymn, as Redlights proves. The industrial psychedelic march of Hound sounds like a club remix of Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man.
The album as a whole feels like a symphony of twisted grooves, dense and tangled electronica, shoegaze-y clusters of distortion, skittery hip-hoppish machine beats, swirling oneiric vocals, and luxuriant musique-concrete collages.