Although praised all over the net's extreme Metal community, far too many people are not aware of the brilliance of Salome's Terminal, released in November last year. After a popular debut in 2008, the trio of Rob Moore, Aaron Deal, and Kat Katz (Agoraphobic Nosebleed) decided to bestow upon us in Terminal, a crushing and razor-sharp sortie of Sludge crusted Doom which will rip your face off. Filled with gargantuan riffs o' plenty from Moore throughout and accompanied by Deal's thunderous percussion, the album really does deserve all the cliched synonymous adjectives oft used in Metal for music which pummels and throttles the listener. That the band achieves this with no bass player is itself astonishing. You really don't miss it though, such is the thick sound of Moore's guitar tone. This aspect along with a female singer attracted a lot of attention (including a segment on NPR), but rather than being novelties, the music and vocals stand alone to produce easily one of the finest albums of 2010.
From chilling slow but incredibly powerful passages to mid-tempo sways of thrusting Doom, Terminal runs the gamut of the two genres they incorporate, blending both seamlessly into a mesmerizing experience.
It was sad and disappointing news then this past week to learn that Katz had left the band as she reported on her Facebook page:
The details are irrelevant, that's between Kat and the band. But what is unfortunate is it means no more epic albums by Salome with Katz as a stunningly potent frontwoman. Let me tackle that also for a minute. There are now quite a number of female vocalists in extreme bands; Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy, Krysta Cameron of iwrestledabearonce, and let's not forget Lori Bravo with the criminally overlooked Nuclear Death all those years ago. But whereas these singers delved into the realm of manly growls and screams, Katz does so with a distinctly female sound. It is as furious and visceral as any of the aforementioned as well as her male counterparts, but there is something uniquely female sounding about Katz's scream that is appealing as it conveys a voice not readily heard in extreme music. She plays in a supposed man's world but makes it her own and is just as viscous, suffocating and alerting as anyone in the field. As she states, good luck to the guys if they continue on with Salome, but it simply won't be the same without Kat Katz and her unique voice.
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