Some record reviews require a little bit more work than others. Sometimes conjuring the mojo to make a convincing argument for a record requires more than just hitting play and picking the cause du jour to bitch about. Sometimes you've just gotta draw the shades, light some temple incense and make a pentagram with masking tape on your office floor. Sunbaked local psych-rock outfit All Them Witches' latest, Lightning at the Door, is one of those records. You don't have to prepare a ritual sacrifice to enjoy it, but damn, it sure does help.
The album inhabits the space between the astral planes, the long shadows cast at sunset, the frigid breath between hoar frost and morning dew. Over the course of eight tracks the quartet summons the ghosts of psychedelia passed, beckoning demons from heavy metal's earliest, evilest grooves and tearing at the fringes of reality like the Thelema Ritual as led by Ten Years After. With Lightning, All Them Witches tap into the bluesman-as-occultist mythology, the origin story at the root of rock 'n' roll and reshape it into 21st century Southern gothic.
When guitarist Ben McLeod and guest guitarist Jason Staebler duel like trigger-happy desperados on "The Marriage of Coyote Woman," the song taps into the spiritual violence at the heart of the American mythos. More than any so-called Americana tune blathering on about whiskey and trains, Lightning's "Charles Williams" speaks to the menace and malevolence at America's core, conjuring the darkened corners of the soul that have steered this country since the days of the Mayflower. On this record, this band is a dark spirit of the forest staring at the Puritanical campfire, seeing evil masked as benevolence and piety.
Well, that's what it looks like from inside the makeshift pentagram in this here office, at least. Truth is, All Them Witches are a liminal band — they're heavy enough for the heshers, but with the songwriting chops and broad sensibilities that appeal to rock fans far beyond the extreme music underground. They write seven-minute songs in a three-minute-song world, and they make it work with a strong sense of narrative and harmonic development.
Superficially, the album fits into a standard blues-rock formula. But get past vocalist Michael Parks Jr.'s vaguely Dan Auerbachian tenor and you'll find a wealth of lush textures and intriguing details, like the distant Theremin getting strangled by a pillow buried beneath the galloping tom fills on "The Death of Coyote Woman." There really is nothing mystical about why Lightning works so well — ATW are killer musicians with a firm grasp on tone and dynamics that often get lost in more staid genre studies, and an ability to stretch out beyond the confines of typical song structure.
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