Salvia Plath
The Bardo Story
Release Date: Jul 9, 2013
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Indie Pop, Neo-Psychedelia, Alternative Singer/Songwriter, Indie Folk
Record label: Domino
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Album Review: The Bardo Story by Salvia Plath
Fairly Good, Based on 5 Critics
Based on rating 7/10
Salvia Plath used to be Run DMT. Same guy (Michael Collins) running the show, but with a different sound. Where Run DMT was lo-fi and took weird chances that sometimes obscured the inherent melodic quality in the songs, Salvia Plath is more considered and hazily psychedelic in a way that helps the songs sink deeply into the listener's consciousness.
Based on rating 3.5/5
Baltimore’s Michael Collins made music as Run DMT until 2012, when an aggressive dubstep group using the same name threatened him with legal action. Now he’s Salvia Plath, a hybrid of The Bell Jar author Sylvia Plath and herbal high salvia. Like albums by other psychedelic dreamers Ariel Pink and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, ‘The Bardo Story’ sounds like a collection of rediscovered ’60s and ’70s gems uploaded to YouTube.
Based on rating 6.4/10
Michael Collins is a Baltimore musician with a fondness for making pun-happy drug references in the names he assumes for his recording projects. He had to give up his last moniker, Run DMT, to a dubstep crew of the same name, so now he's trying Salvia Plath on for size. The music is suited to a new name-- Collins has shed some of the chillwave tendencies that made Run DMT sink into a gauze-y morass of bands around the time of his Bong Voyage in 2009.
Based on rating 6/10
Let’s get this out of the way first. Salvia Plath, the recording moniker of Baltimore artist Michael Collins, is rather a silly band name. Run DMT, the name he previously used before the other Run DMT, a dubstep outfit, threatened him with a lawsuit, is also dumb. Run DMT’s recorded output included Bong Voyage, Get Ripped or Die Trying, and, most recently, Dreams.
Based on rating C+
Do you like drugs? Well, me too. So, sit down over there and take a rip of Baltimore’s Salvia Plath, the predictably psychedelic project from Michael Collins, former freight train hopper and occasional experimenter in mind-altering substances. With a barely chuckle-worthy moniker and a psych-folk sound that matches rather than subverts its name, Salvia Plath stands precariously at the border of self-parody – which is ultimately just where Collins wants to be.
'The Bardo Story'
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