Shit creeps along in shadows and murk. Phil Collins eating mescaline and soundtracking an 80s gore-porn. That room upstairs at the party with the door locked and strange laughter coming out from underneath. Text drawings. Depleted serotonin/recovered serotonin. Strange vibrations.

At one point in “Deepburn” it sounds like somebody is in the basement getting hit with an axe while (whomever the girl is who sings in this band; you try and find info on these guys) coos softly from the attic through the floor and a thick layer of dust. The video for “Dirt” depicts a rough looking stripper slithering on the hood of a parked car while the driver, a middle-aged woman, looks on in absolute horror. The cover is a photo of an androgynous teenage-ish person crying in _____ (fear? agony? terror?). The title casually affirms regular use of (perhaps) the most famously degenerative street drug in the world.

This whole next level of paranoid confusion that’s been kicking in for some of us as this summer has burned itself out over the last few weeks has been looking for some sort of soundtrack. Salem aren’t necessarily doing anything groundbreaking with these gothy lo-fi electro mood pieces, but when their music and their aesthetic and their whitewashed Myspace page and whatever little else one can dig up on them is taken together as a whole the message is that nothing is sacred, nothing is beautiful, and the only things that are beautiful and sacred are ugliness and blaspheme.

And it suits the times. Things are falling apart like the trees in October. Yesterday was the single biggest loss ever on Wall Street. There’s a good chance McCain (and, necessarily, Palin) will get elected. Harper will get reelected. Russia is going to help Venezuela’s nuclear program. Gas is at $1.30/litre and people are happy about it because it’s ‘down’. A hurricane is headed towards the Maritimes. The world is an ever more violent maelstrom and all I care about is getting fucked up and not caring about fucking up.

Longer nights allow more time for better sleeps or morbid nightmares remembering where it all went wrong. Autumn’s beauty constantly tempered by winter’s impending strangulation of the light. Consistent tension. Salem’s it.

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Out now on Acephale Records.