Salome
TBD
Label – Profound Lore
Release date – TBD

We’ve been singing Salome’s praises for awhile, but following last year’s announcement that the band was signing with Profound Lore, 2010 will finally bring the release of the band’s first full-length. And there is literally not a single doom metal album I’m more excited about this year. Even if it’s only half as good as the band’s live show and and a quarter as good as the band’s self-titled 2008 EP, it will still be better than almost anything any other band releases in 2010.

At once sludgy, sad, viciously vitriolic and crushingly heavy, the Salome EP is what I listen to every time I’m constipated. There’s so much fucking low end that it just shakes my bowels loose. Take that, Metamucil.

But all signs point to this new album not just being more of the same, but a serious progression from Salome as well. “With Hell for a Mouth,” the track we gave away last year which was featured on the band’s split with fellow 2010 face-fuckers Thou, sported slightly more polished production than Salome had, as well as an increased variance within the songwriting. And it did it without sacrificing a single ounce of heaviness. Listening to that song still makes me feel like a little wooden bar stool trying to support Dino Cazares. While Gene Hoglan sits on his shoulders. And Billy Milano tries to do a handstand on top of them.

The truth is, I don’t really know what to expect from the new Salome album – except that it will be crushing, and, knock on wood, exceptional. Let 2010 be known as the year that this young band got their due.

-AR