Forgotten Fridays: Salt - Auscultate

Forgotten Fridays is a weekly feature here at If It’s Too Loud... where we go back and find the lost records of our glory days. We played these on our college radio shows, put them on countless mix tapes, and then forgot they existed. Once a week we go back and remind you, and help decide if they were any good.

In 1996, Salt came out of Sweden and became the next Nirvana… for maybe a month. Inspired by the strength of their single “Bluster” off of the album Auscultate, modern rock DJs and music journalists gave them the highest praise imaginable. Their show at TT the Bear’s in Cambridge, MA, was touted as a “must see” show, your only chance to see them before they became megastars. After the show, it was reported that they didn’t address the audience until just before the last song, saying, “We’re Salt, and we don’t do encores,” which is the most and least rock star thing you can say at the same time. After that… pretty much nothing.

Listening to Auscultate in 2013, I’m astounded by how mediocre it is. It’s not bad at all; it’s good. But that’s all it is - just good. Nothing separates it from any of the other mid-90s “Next Nirvana” bands, such as Silverchair. If anything they sound like a poor man’s Gits.

Salt released a follow up, Delay Me Down and Make Me Wah Wah!!, in 1997. After Salt disbanded, singer Nina Ramsby joined electronica band Baxter and has released 3 solo albums since 2004.