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Salem (band)
Salem (band)
Salem Origin Genre(s) Giv’atayim, Israel Oriental metal Death metal Doom metal Black metal 1985-present KMG System Shock Season of Mist (current) Orphaned Land, Melechesh, Nail Within, Arallu www.salemband.com
Years active Label(s)
Associated acts Website Members
Ze’ev Tananboim Lior Mizrachi Nir Gutraiman Michael Goldstein Nir Nakav
Salem is an Israeli extreme metal band, pioneers of the oriental metal movement and of the Israeli heavy metal scene in general. Much of their lyrics and mucis deals with political issues concerning the Jewish people and Israel, most notably the concept albums Kaddish (1994) and Collective Demise (2002).
History
Salem, the first extreme metal band in Israel, was formed in 1985, and is thus one of the first bands in the worldwide underground metal scene to play brutal black metal. This can be heard in their self-titled rehearsal tape from 1986 and their live demo Destruction Till Death from 1987, recorded at the legendary ’Penguin’ club, the only outlet for alternative music in Israel throughout the 1980s. This formula was later perfected by bands such as Beherit and Blasphemy in the early 1990s. After five years underground, the band released another live demo, Millions Slaughtered (1990), with a new line-up and a genre shift towards the death/doom realms. This sold 1,500 copies and led to a record deal with the German label Morbid Records.
Creating Our Sins (1992) and Kaddish (1994) were released by Morbid Records and became the first metal albums from Israel to gain worldwide success. Kaddish is a concept album about the Holocaust. Prior to its release, Morbid Records released a 7" picture EP with the single "Dying Embers" (1994) to promote the album, and when Kaddish came out, a limited edition picture disc was released. The opening song, "The Fading," was played on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball rotation and had the band elected as one of the 10 best up-and-coming bands in the world by MTV and Kerrang!. Kaddish also featured a cover song in Hebrew called "Ha’ayara Bo’eret" ("the small town is burning"). The song was originally a poem written in Yiddish under the name "S’brent" ("it is burning") by Polish-Jewish poet Mordechai Gebirtig in 1938, in response to the 1936 pogrom of Jews in the town of Przytyk near Radom. It was since translated into Hebrew, long before the band performed it. National controversy led to the Israeli parliament discussing whether it was appropriate for a metal band to play such songs. In 1998, now with Israeli label B.N.E., the band enlisted producer Colin Richardson (Machine Head, Fear Factory), who flew over to Israel to record A Moment of Silence. The album was recorded in D.B. studios in Israel and The Chapel in England and was released late 1998. A big distribution deal with Modern Music (Germany) fell through due to miscommunication between B.N.E. and Salem. In early 2001, Salem was released from their contract with B.N.E. In December 2001, Salem signed a three-album deal with KMG/ System Shock from Germany. Their fourth album, Collective Demise, was released in September 2002, the most aggressive Salem album to date, produced by the band and recorded in D.B. Studios and Noise Studios in Israel. Most of the songs deal with the second Intifada. In 2005 Salem released Strings Attached, 11 previously-recorded songs now re-recorded with added string instruments. The album was also released as a special edition
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with a bonus CD, including 4 live performances from the Live Demise DVD, which was shot in July 2006. Salem’s latest album is Necessary Evil. It includes a 27-minute long piece titled "Once Upon a Lifetime Parts I - V", and a short protest song called "Amona," dealing with the 2005 events in Amona. The album was released in June 2007. That month the band performed for the first time ever outside of Israel, during the Hellfest festival in Clisson, France.
Salem (band)
Discography
Albums
• • • • • • • Creating Our Sins 1992 Kaddish 1994 A Moment of Silence 1998 Collective Demise 2002 Strings Attached 2005 Necessary Evil 2007 Playing God 2009
Demos
• Salem 1986 • Destruction Till Death 1987 • Millions Slaughtered 1990
Musical style
Salem’s music is a combination of doom/ death metal (slow-paced death metal) with oriental elements and high-pitched screaming-vocals (distorted hoarse screams). Riffing, henceforth, can range from slow and heavy doom metal riffing to very fast and rapid death metal riffing. This sound evolved from Salem’s original style (first two demos), which was old-school black metal. Salem’s latest two studio albums are much heavier than their former LP’s. In some songs, Salem uses oriental (Jewish and Middle-eastern) melodies, such as "Act of Terror," "Al Taster," and the intro for "Ha’ayara Bo’eret." In Collective Demise, female vocals were combined with Tananboim’s singing. Salem has thus far recorded two songs in Hebrew: Mordechai Gebirtig’s "Ha’ayara Boe’ret," and "Al Taster", taken from Psalms. These along with some Orphaned Land songs are among the few extreme metal songs sung in Hebrew.
EPs
• Dying Embers 1994
DVDs
• Live Demise 2006 • Salem Underground 2008
Band members
• • • • • • Ze’ev Tananboim - vocals Lior Mizrachi (Afifit) - guitar Nir Gutraiman - guitar Michael Goldstein - bass Nir Nakav - drums Rhonda Hossenfeffer - Tuba
External links
• • • • Official website Salem at MySpace Salem at The BNR Metal Pages Drummer Nir Nakav’s official website
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_(band)" Categories: Oriental metal musical groups, Israeli death metal musical groups, Israeli heavy metal musical groups, Musical groups established in 1985, 1980s music groups, 1990s music groups, 2000s music groups This page was last modified on 20 April 2009, at 17:03 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) taxdeductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers
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