event - salem at the russian club, london

23rd november

Salem are famously shit and apathetic live. In fact, they're not shit live. Granted, they're pretty apathetic

in their demeanour, and aren't as edgy as you'd hope or expect. The hugeness of King Night isn't really captured in its live reproduction. But what they make doesn't require a great deal of technical skill so they're fighting a losing battle night after night in that sense. They do have a lot going for them though. Heather Marlatt's vocals are trippy and pretty, harmonising with the deep electronics and muddy beats on standouts Redlight and Sick.

It's in keeping with the studied carelessness – actually a lot less studied than many would have you believe – that vocalist Jack Donoghue can come

from sitting under a keyboard for a large part of the set to rap in slow motion right in the faces of the people at the front during Trapdoor. What's even more bizarre is how he can pull it off with a straight face. On record Salem really are quite a bit better – there's not much point trying to pretend otherwise. The fact that they sometimes even make music over the internet, living in different cities and putting the parts together digitally, gives us a clue that some of the organic feeling of a live performance is bound to be lost on them. However, this faintly self-aware, shady vocal style is presented much better live than on record. It doesn't feel incongruous at all, and there's an immersive darkness to it that Salem do very well, and use to make the actual experience of seeing them live better than listening to a record.

The atmosphere of the gig is very dank and heavy, managing to make do with a fairly small PA system. The whitewash of the small underground

space and the simple stageless set-up of electronics show us just how grimey Salem can get without any real squalor in sight. But you can probably guess that their real lifestyles aren't this pristine. Yes, the myths and the image of Salem are probably working their magic just as much as the music, but they do have some great songs, and they do it their own way. The attitude is so anti that they couldn't be aiming for success in any real terms, and that's a trait we'll never have enough of. Instead, we're taken on an intimate and dark journey into Salem's unique world of murky hedonism without actually having to suffer for it.

release - salem - king night

type: album

released: 28th september 2010

label: iamsound

genre: electronic, dubstep, witch house

King Night gets straight to the point. What sounds like a guitar solo played through AM radio is followed by an eerie, almost soulful voice half-singing "I love you". Next a bit of meandering electronics is backed by gentle snare tapping before gaudy, blaring synths come in at full force over rumbling bass. It's the title track to Salem's debut album and it sounds like a hymn from the dark side, otherwordly, terrifying and deeply sensual.

This is the face of so-called witch house, also known as drag, ghost drone and a variety of even more spurious names. It's a highly stylised genre, drawing on a wide range of sounds past and present including dark ambient, dubstep, ethereal post-punk and a general love for the occult. Salem, who had been releasing EPs for over a year before the trend began to take off have fortunately managed to escape the fetishising of obscure unicode characters singular to witch house bands – †‡†, oOoOO and ▲ haven't been quite so lucky.

King Night doesn't quite live up to the promise of its opening title track or indeed the intrigue surrounding the genre, but there are a lot of interesting experiments put forward and some of it is very enjoyable. Asia follows on from the first track as a sort of refrain, the stuttering bass and fractured vocals doing all they can to refute that less is more. It's nowhere near as effective but it's recognisable as coming from the same thought process.

This seems like an album that's unaware of what it really wants to be. It may be a dark and sometimes bleak listen, but it's too wilfully oblique to be truly scary. Songs like Trapdoor and Tair show an attempt to try different things, but in reality are not particularly interesting experiments and border on ridiculous. The twin rapping on Sick works however, recalling Sleigh Bells' efforts earlier in the year to combine hip-hop vocals with unexpected instruments. This album is also wise to revert occasionally to the noirish disco of acts like Fever Ray, with the glacial dream pop of Frost and Redlights standing out, the latter being a massive improvement on the EP version.

For the most part the more daring parts seem to be the more successful. It takes a good deal to get away with a lack of songwriting, but there is plenty to enjoy in the chaotic, glitchy textures of the vigorously titled Hound and Release Da Boar. Killer, the last track is a strange mix of sad vocals and power electronics, but it offers some much-needed space and perspective, making it an ideal choice to frame the album alongside its polar opposite opener.

At its best this is a heavy and engaging take on dubstep, a welcome change from other acts mixing traditional rock structures with electronics, and all in all a well balanced album. At its worst it's affected edginess that almost reaches self-parody. What can be said though, is that Salem is a band crafting their sound independently of a need to be assigned to a genre that might not be around this time next year.

Salem - King Night