Salem Wolves create ‘Hostile Music’ for a hostile world
Fiery lead single from the Boston psychotronic heathens hits January 19
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Salem Wolves’ new EP ‘Hostile Music’ arrives this spring
Pre-save ‘Hostile Music’ to hear it first on release day
Photo Credit: Erin Patton
“‘Hostile Music’ is as direct a statement of purpose as you can find. We make hostile music for a hostile world. The world is as vicious as it’s ever been and we’re all barely keeping up. So this is us announcing our renewal, our focused aggression.” _Gray Bouchard
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INNSMOUTH, MA [January 19, 2022] -- One of the great dichotomies of modern life is our urgency to move forward at a time when we have no idea where we are going. The impact of the past two years, on every human level, cannot be understated, but what’s perhaps more terrifying about where we’ve been is the lack of understanding of where we’re headed. It’s created a tightness to the right here, right now, and the tension it’s creating throughout society is becoming increasingly hostile. Salem Wolves have captured that paranoia and agitation through their ferocious new record Hostile Music, with its title track crashing the streams, complete with lyric video, on Wednesday, January 19.
The five-song EP, set for release this spring after a monthly rollout of singles (the fiery “Hostile Music” this month; psych-rock tumbler “We Aren’t Your Friends” in February; and the haunting “Breaking Grounds” in March, completed by live versions of Wolves classics “Titanium” and “Turn to Gold”), center around the people we’ve changed into, and the myriad ways that isolation and fear can change and distort a person. The feeling rings through in true psychotronic fury for the New England quartet, with their first new music since last year’s 617Sessions with the Boston Music Awards (“Paraffin”), where they were nominated for Rock Act of the Year. They didn’t win, but these days, few do.
“Hostile Music is about the feeling of hostility that’s all around us right now, trying to explore and unpack what it feels like to live constantly under siege by a toxic culture and society,” says Salem Wolves singer and guitarist Gray Bouchard. “Hostility is probably the behavior I’ve struggled with the most in my life, especially the past few years – people being hostile to me, me being mean right back. Hostility isn’t rage, it isn’t righteousness, it isn’t indignation – it’s distrust. It’s not a particularly useful feeling… hostility doesn’t change the world, it can’t make anything better. It’s a behavior that separates us.”
And that’s the core of this new batch of songs from Salem Wolves, a mainstay in the Boston music scene who are extending outreach to capture the zeitgeist of not just a city, but the nation at large. Because what’s happening here is happening over there, despite the man-made borders that separate us.
“I felt compelled to write about the feeling of hostility, from within and from outside, to give a form to that sense things aren’t getting better and we can’t keep going like this,” Bouchard adds. “We’ve never been much of a kumbaya, ‘everybody get together, love one another’ kind of group, but I do think if we can give it a name, we can try and fight it. Writing it is exorcising that demon as well as reflecting the dark place we’re at now.”
The Hostile Music EP finds Salem Wolves at a fully-realized state. Following the release of last year’s Never Die!!! EP, and their 2018 debut album Shake, Bouchard reloaded the Wolves lineup in late 2021 to feature drummer Don Schweihofer, bassist Justin Tisdale, and guitarist Sam Valliere. He calls it a more ferocious and versatile lineup, with the basic core of Salem Wolves – loud, emotionally urgent music – still intact. This is still a band that writes the songs that they want to hear, but there’s a deeper, more complex craftsmanship and arrangement to Bouchard’s primal slash-and-burn tendencies, as if they’ve abandoned the suburban garage for an urban military bunker. And that rings true in the Hostile Music EP’s title track, perhaps the band’s most incendiary work to date.
“We’ve always been drawn to exploring complicated, unsavory characters and feelings,” Bouchard notes. “Both the music and the ideas of ‘Hostile Music’ evoke that: We’re not here to save the world, we’re here to reflect it – unflattering angles and all. The song is dark and desperate, but also a soaring plea to come together. We know we’re not alone in feeling crushed under the weight of hostility, so we’re hoping this song gives some relief to the folks who feel like us, something they can sing along to, to know the world doesn’t need to be so lonely.”
He adds: “With so much of our lives lived in isolation these days, it’s easy to breed hostility. When all we have is a screen to look at the lives and thoughts of others, that little window doesn’t allow for much humanity to shine through. We judge folks harshly. We set up walls against people and behaviors we find unsavory. Maybe there’s some wisdom and self-care in that, but the feeling of anger and distrust against someone itself is toxic. It eats away at you. The song is a wake-up call: We can’t live in this state of hostility all the time.”
Especially with tomorrow’s perpetual unknown.
Contact michael@publisist.co or salemwolves@gmail.com for more information.
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Salem Wolves are:
Gray Bouchard: Vocals and Guitar
Don Schweihofer: Drums and vocals
Justin Tisdale: Bass
Sam Valliere: Guitar
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Hostile Music credits:
Recorded with Erik Von Geldern at Berlin Audio Productions
Mixed and mastered by Jay Maas
Album art by Scafarella
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‘Hostile Music’ artwork:
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Media praise for Salem Wolves:
“Salem Wolves… add some punk fury to the darkness. What begins as a quiet, mutative track blooms into a rampaging rock ’n’ roll rave-up [‘Titanium’]. Ugh, we need club shows to return and Salem Wolves to headline them so we pump our fists and shout, ‘Cold as titanium.’” _Boston Herald
“Massachusetts-based psychotronic rock band Salem Wolves pull out three exclamation marks!!! on the title track from their new EP. A great sound -- I just ‘discovered’ this band, but they have apparently been tearing up around New England for some time.” _Ear2TheGround
"Salem Wolves bring a mix of garage-y noise, distorted witchy psych sounds, and pop sensibilities to life on Black Books. The more I hear it, the catchier it gets... Trashy garage pop at its demented best." _Anngelle Wood, WZLX
“Once the force of 'Titanium' picks up, the best you can do is hold on for dear life... It's a huge, slick, loud, and heavy rock song." _If It’s Too Loud
"Salem Wolves are here to summon out your inner ache for rugged, and damned riffs that ride out into a thousand sunsets.” _Impose Magazine
“That rumbling heard off in the distance is Salem Wolves. Debut EP ‘Black Books’ [is] a garage-pop and surf-rock mixer that puts a fresh spin on tested sounds... a gritty, hip-shaking number that tumbles along to the imagined sights of a bonfire beach party” _Vanyaland
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Press contact: michael@publisist.co or gray.bouchard@gmail.com
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