SALEM LIGHTS
Insect Wings (Flapping Jet)
Reviewed by Alan Wright

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You know, sometimes you get a CD and it takes a few listens to get into it, and sometimes you never get into it at all. Then there's that freak exception, as is the case with this CD, where halfway through the first song I was digging what they're doing so much, I knew I was gonna love it so much, that before the CD was over I already wanted to hear it again! Salem Lights hail from Oakland, California and seem to be caught in some sorta proto-punk time warp. Echos of bands like the Velvet Underground, Stooges, Electric Eels, Styrenes, Mirrors, and more permeate the sound of this band like so much mold growing in a dark, cold cellar. Songs like "Farewell For Caberria" and "Insect Wings" have mind-blowing guitar work and recall bands like Television and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. I really dig their feedback-drenched version of the 13th Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me," which also references Roky Erickson's pre-Elevators band the Spades' "We Sell Soul" and the Rolling Stones' "Empty Heart."

[Pick this up at www.flappingjet.com.]

© 2003 - Alan Wright