something about a new album by a French noise-rock band

Biographic details on Salo, the noise-rock band responsible for this punchy new release, are hard to come by. But the album, From Melmac With Hate, makes a fine statement on its own.

The first of these 11 confrontational songs is “Guillotine,” which zigzags a trail of noise buoyed by a hairy bass guitar tone under crashing cymbals and a vocal that seeks abandon. Salo’s musicianship comes through especially on “Jay” and “Speed Missile,” two of the most energetic performances on the album. The tremolo effect on the guitar breaks through at 1:35 on “Jay”—the notes cut noise like the bent, serrated edge of the junk-drawer knife. And the swinging drumming style, accompanied by that hairy bass, propels a lot of this album. “Jay” and “Speed Missile” exude a punk-inspired sound that is confrontational, spiteful, and desperate for attention.

Salo is a trio based in Lyon, France. Funny how small bands can make such big sounds. Social media suggests Salo is about five years old. The band cites as influences The Fall, Thee Oh Sees, and METZ—the last band being the most directly comparable. Halfway through From Melmac With Hate comes “Bring Back Medieval Plague.” This song, with its provoked vocal and damaging low-end rhythm section, approaches a blend of The Jesus Lizard and Young Widows. It is a clawing scramble up a mountain.

Salo slow the pace later in the album with “Tasmanian Tiger (for Nikita).” The bass guitar remains imposing, but the drums, especially the hi-hat, become stilted and self-conscious, almost uncomfortable. Arpeggio-style guitar notes smolder. The measured cadence of the vocal sounds borrowed from the tune of some Scottish folk pub song. The tone on the opening and closing guitar figure is a change-up, too. It is a stadium-ready sound from a guitar that spends the rest of the album cutting through back alleys.

about tennis and a new piece in The New Yorker

The Australian Open men's final this year was awesome. The Russki, Daniil Medvedev, is a funny, quasi-villain and impending champion, and Rafa Nadal, in his mid-30s now, is the sport's older statesman—older even beyond his tennis years because his unrelenting hustle and highly physical style of play has worn down his body. But Medvedev had the harder journey to this final, and Nadal is still a champion. Here is how a piece from The New Yorker summarizes Nadal's winning tactics:

Nadal’s topspin forehand gets a ball to not only bounce up but penetrate deeper wherever it’s headed, and he sent Medvedev chasing angled shots that bounded beyond the sidelines. He moved Medvedev forward and back with short slices, followed by deep, out-of-reach groundstrokes.

And then here is the column denouement:

Nadal spoke before the tournament began about how majors are bigger than any one player, and how generations of players come and go but the game remains. He also talked about how tennis is, as he put it, “zero important” compared with the pandemic that has swept the world. This was his way of talking about Djokovic, whose arrival, unvaccinated, in Melbourne, and subsequent deportation dominated coverage of the sport in the week before the Australian Open began, and threatened to cloud it afterward. That it didn’t—that the tennis was just too good not to become what mattered—was due in great part to Nadal and to Barty. That’s what the greatest champions can do.

 

Note: The final was played on January 30, 2022.