Salem

Most people don't associate rock'n'roll of any kind--let alone extreme metal--with Israel or the Middle East.  There are most certainly exceptions to this, like Israeli bands like Melechesh, Bishop of Hexen, and Orphaned Land.  But ahead of all of these bands is Tel Aviv's SALEM.  They formed in 1985, and released several demos in the later 1980s before releasing full-length studio albums in the early 1990s.

Title track from their 1987 demo Destruction Till Death

After such demos as 1986's Salem, 1987's Destruction Till Death, and 1990's Millions Slaughtered, Salem managed to catch the attention of the fast-growing Norwegian scene.  Black metallers such as Mayhem's Dead and Euronymous tried to woo Salem away from the Middle East and to northern Europe in order to join the rapidly expanding Scandinavian scene.

From 1992's Creating Our Sins EP

In 1992, Salem put out the Creating Our Sins EP, and began a long and storied career of influential studio albums.  1994's Kaddish went on to be hugely important--but also controversial--in the global extreme metal world.  Controversial because of the overtly pro-Israel, Zionist lyrical content.  Many elements in the black metal underground were not comfortable with such sentiments (Burzum's Varg Vikernes allegedly sent a mailbomb to the members of Salem).

"The Fading" is off of 1994's Kaddish

Since 1994's Kaddish, Salem has produced a fairly steady stream of albums and singles.  Their style has changed somewhat, however, shifting from an old school brutal black/death sound to a more doom/death-oriented sound to a more straightforward death metal sound.  For the purposes of this black metal retrospective, their more recent work (basically since Kaddish) is not relevant--that doesn't mean it's not good, just not very black metal.

Select Discography:

Salem (demo) (1986)

Destruction Til Death (demo) (1987)

Millions Slaughtered (demo) (1989)
Promo 1989 (demo)  (1989)
Creating Our Sins 12" (1992)
Kaddish (full-length) (1994)

Next time: MORTUARY DRAPE