From The Reader
With their Ryan-McGinley-goes-to-the-trailer-park looks and trendy witch-house sound—imagine a goth DJ's record collection chopped and screwed—Salem effortlessly leapt from obscurity to indie-music-blog ubiquity. Soon enough, most of the people paying attention to the group went from loving them to ignoring them in favor of the new-new—as is usually the case in these situations—but sticking with Salem has proved interesting. I still find much of last year's King Night (Iamsound) unlistenable, but in a really fascinating way that continues to compel me to put the album on. With their daring way of being tunefully terrible, their ability to attract frequent accusations of exploitative cultural appropriation, and their druggy-cool image, Salem just might be this generation's Pussy Galore. It's about time. —Miles Raymer
