God loves Nick Saloman, and from the heavens, the expulsion of the beloved archangel fell and spawned Horrorful Heights. A 20-track double-album behemoth. Eighty-eight minutes of musical mayhem. Who does that anymore? nobody. As they edit themselves down to make nice, safe Spotify playlists, Nick just dumps the whole glorious attic on your head like the wicked witch of the East. Where most musicians his age are busy curating safe, acoustic museum pieces of their youth, Saloman is still in his garage, smelling of solder and stale Earl Grey tea. It is a triumphant testament to uncompromising artistic longevity, but it is written by a guy who looks like he just wandered off a London construction site, and that is not such a bad thing. No guy liner and spandex…. Save that for the 1980’s cruise alcoholiday!
The sonic whiplash's velocity is what hits you first, like a chainsaw jumping back at your shins. One second, you are stuck in "sink estate," which is this incredibly bleak, grey, social-realist lyric about crappy council flats and broken modern Britain, but the guitar solo sounds like a Holden Caulfield goddamn stiletto tearing through a Fender amp, evoking the raw power of Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix. Then, immediately after he hits you with "best laid plans," suddenly there's this weeping, sad, lingering pedal steel guitar grabbing and plucking your heart strings like a forgotten Tennessee session player.
What anchors the whole sprawling mess, though, is Saloman's weaponized machine gun self-deprecation. In an industry bloated with tight-panted throbbing cock rockers posing for posterity and chlamydia cream-filled donut holes, Nick operates like a bloke who accidentally wandered into a recording studio forty years ago and just forgot to leave or never found the door.. he completely rejects rock-star pretension and openly admits he only plays the keyboards and drums on his records just well enough to "make it sound like i've got a clue," jokingly warning that if he ever tried it live the audience would instantly realize he has "no idea what he’s doing." The closing track is literally called "king for a day," and he’s singing about how the music industry gave him a crown and then immediately snatched it back. He knows he’s an underground cult act, and he thinks the fact that people still travel down to see him live is mostly a matter of dark, practical logistics—just in case he kicks the bucket before the next tour. Is the record too long? yeah probably. Do I care? not even a little bit. It's loud and ragged and perfect. A masterclass in aging disgracefully, and that is a compliment.
