W♥M (Archive)

All Them Witches

Read More Windhand Windhand has a new album called Soma, coming out September 17th on Relapse Records. The Richmond band also announced a Winter tour with High On Fire and Kvelertak … Jex Thoth Seattle's Jex Thoth (formerly Totem), play a solid girl-fronted psychedelic doom. This is one of those CD's that just kind of came out of nowhere and surprised me with how good it is. …

We don't really run contests or promotions on W♥M, but since I already just tweeted you can win a pair of tickets to tomorrow (September 11th) show at the Triple Rock Social Club tomorrow to see Windhand, Jex Thoth and All Them Witches, I may as well mention this on the official website. Please email me [email protected] if you want to win a pair of tickets.

Since we've already previously written about Windhand and Jex Thoth, I will spotlight All Them Witches, the third band on the bill.

Nashville's All Them Witches took their name from Roman Polanski's 1968 Rosemary's Baby and released their debut Our Mother Electricity in 2012. They quickly follow up with Lightning At The Door, which was recorded live in a matter of days with producer and engineer Andy Putnam. The record, according to Amazon, will be out next week, September 16th.

The band are currently on tour in support of the upcoming album:

Sept. 10 Chicago, IL Cobra Lounge
Sept. 11 Mpls, MN Triple Rock Social Club
Sept. 12 Cudahy, WI Metal Grill
Sept. 13 Ferndale, MI Loving Touch
Sept. 14 Toronto, ON CODA
Sept. 16 Ottawa, ON Cafe Dekcuf
Sept. 17 Montreao, QC Petit Campus
Sept. 18 Cambridge, MA Middle East Upstairs
Sept. 19 Providence, RI AS220
Sept. 20 Brooklyn, NY St. Vitus
Sept. 21 Ithaca, NY The Dock
Sept. 23 Lancaster, PA Lizard Lounge
Sept. 24 Charlottesville, VA Southern Cafe
Sept. 25 Knoxville, TN Preservation Pub
Sept. 26 Cincinnati, OH Midpoint Music Festival
Sept. 27 Winston-Salem, NC The Garage
Sept. 28 Asheville, NC The Mothlight
Oct. 1 Louisville, KY Zanzabar
Oct. 2 Lexington, KY The Green Lantern
Oct. 3 Huntington, WV V Club
Nov. 1 Santa Ana, CA Day of the Shred
Nov. 30 Nashville, TN 3rd & Lindsley

Minneapolis, if you would like to attend their show at the Triple Rock Social Club tomorrow, please email me.

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic

Jex Thoth - self-titled

 

Stone Evil

Jex Thoth

Seattle's Jex Thoth (formerly Totem), play a solid girl-fronted psychedelic doom. This is one of those CD's that just kind of came out of nowhere and surprised me with how good it is.

 

The album opens with a short intro followed by a kind of weird downtuned guitar sound, with Jex Thoth (the name of both the singer and the band) channeling Sabbath-era Ozzy Osbourne in her own unique, and really cool way. Topped off by an atonal solo, I'd say this track (entitled “Nothing Left to Die”) kicks off the album in a pretty awesome way.

 

The second track, “The Banishment” is based around an organ played in a way that makes me wonder how many flaming pentagrams they had going in the studio. Kind of kitschy, but tasteful. Reminds me of some old horror movie. It ends with a sped-up section with a guitar solo in it.

 

The next track is “Obsidian Night,” which opens with a downtuned, sludgy intro and a guitar lead with some gnarly feedback on it. Jex's vocals are particularly good on this track. I don't know if the echo effect that comes in about halfway through is really necessary, but it doesn't detract so much as just distract, and actually, on second listen, sounds pretty cool.

 

“Seperated at Birth” is a more uptempo track. I really dig the guitar lead on this one. The vocals stand out here, once again. This one leads into another more uptempo track called “Son of Yule,” which starts out all about the sludge and surprises with a sudden turn into organ-based psych territory and then breaks down to prepare for re-entry into the same heavy-ass sludge it started with.

 

“Warrior Woman” is a little more downtempo, and unfortunately, is the victim of rather poor placement on the album. I kinda wish it wasn't positioned right before the album's centerpiece, “Equinox Suite,” which is made up of four parts. “The Poison Pit” has some awesome guitar tone, with a sort of “medieval” vibe, and some restrained vocals that serve as a fitting intro to the rest of it. Part two, the instrumental “Thawing Magus,” is more on the psych end of things, with a syncopated hand drum beat under a noodling guitar line. It builds into a sort of reverb-drenched “jammy” thing, that leads straight in to part three, another instrumental confusingly titled “Invocation Pt. 1,” which is even more on the psych end of things, with the organ's tone sort of reminiscent of Geogaddi-era Boards of Canada. This track's purpose is to build into part four, “The Damned and Divine,” which is not an instrumental! The vocals kick back in. It's a slower track with an emphasis on the loud/quiet dynamic and the strength of the vocals, trading sections with sparsely arranged hand drums and vocals with a classic Sabbath-based sludge.

 

They follow that up with “When the Raven Calls,” which isn't one of the album's strongest tracks, and is also kind of a victim of being placed right after one of the album's strongest tracks. Thankfully, it closes on a good'un. “Stone Evil” opens with a sparsely arranged guitar/hand drum/feedback intro that's drowned out by what sounds almost like a low-flying plane and classic doom vocals to top it all off.

 

This is a great album, and I'm really glad to have gotten it for review. This band doesn't appear to be touring or anything right now. But other than this album, they have a split out with Pagan Altar, and a self-titled 3-song mini-CD from when they were called Totem. I haven't heard either of their other releases, but if this one is anything to go by, I'd be willing to bet they're good.

More info can be found at the band's official MySpace page

-Soup