Karyn Crisis is an artistic and spiritual polymath who always seems to have various soul wrenching projects on the go, which she juggles as deftly as she summons various voices along the demonic scale with her iron-clad diaphragm and schizophrenic vocal chords. And, as supporters of, and participants in, underground culture, we should be as pleased as punch she does what she does because someone this multi-talented and dedicated to DIY should never be allowed to stagnate or sit still for one second.
Her sanity, scheduling and rest of her life be damned! We want to hear, see and experience the window into her world and we weren’t hearing enough of it once Crisis called it a day in 2006. Her appearance on hubby Davide Tiso’s final Ephel Duath recording, Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness opened a Pandora’s Box of pining for the sort of vocal roller coaster that’s been missing from our worthless lives since the days we sat back in disbelieving wonder at the racket emerging from such a tiny frame on records like 1996’s Deathshead Extermination and 1997’s The Hollowing.
Five years in the making, and supposedly spawned from a month spent living and writing in a Tuscany farm house haunted by Aradia, the ghost of an ancient Italian witch, Salem’s Wounds also features Ross Dolan of Immolation and Tombs’ Mike Hill playing gruff and growly foil to Crisis’ multi-hued emanations, although the jury is still out as to whether she couldn’t have done those parts herself. Each song has her voice taking center stage, creating the theme over the generally sparse musical arrangements.
The pattern goes like so: a particular vocal phrase is established, then various ranges and vocalizations are stacked and layered on top in a continually upward moving trajectory. “Alchemist” has a tribal sensibility written all over it with Karyn’s voice playing on the straight and narrow as often as it slingshots with expressive peals centered around a call and response duel with (presumably) Dolan’s death grunt. “Aradia” has a rapid fire denouement, whereas “Mother” is at once contemplative and bubbling with rage. A song like this one with its heartfelt vocals, powerful lyrical imagery and factory-farmed Godflesh riff makes the idea of cracking open Karyn Crisis’ head open and examining the contents both interesting and terrifying. On “Goddess of Light” she sounds almost coquettish while referencing Jefferson Airplane slickness and “The Sword and the Stone” has an almost pop sensibility to it, but her indebtedness to indie super heroine, Diamanda Galas is very evident on “Ancient Ways”
However, there’s an elephant lurking in the corner of Salem's Wounds. And that is the fact that operating in proportional opposition to the ridiculously diverse vocal performance is an often discouraging musical accompaniment lacking in the necessary energy, depth and diversity to match the vocal gymnastics. There’s a sense of minimalism at work where languid and ethereal post-punk inspirations create a subdued landscape. Sparse and elegiac guitar melodies teeter on the edge of brightly lit, snail’s paced doom metal.
This is all fine and good, but the linearity ends up feeling tedious by the halfway point of the thirteen track running length. It’s the equivalent of a successful group project in which one person did all the work, of a quarterback stealing the glory away from the offensive line as his completion rate soars because he has regularly has extra handfuls of seconds in the pocket, of watching any episode of Married…With Children, 80s action movies or scripted porn and worrying about the plot and subtext. Expectedly, Crisis’ voice does most of the heavy lifting and does an excellent job, but the degree to which the music is outshined makes this a surprisingly uneven listen.
6.5/10
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