Album review: All Them Witches – House Of Mirrors

All Them Witches are a band who exist out of time. Dropping six albums between 2012 and 2020, the doomy Nashville psyche rockers sounded initially like they might have been an older outfit who’d somehow hidden away in a southern back bar, finally emerging to feed out songs they’d stockpiled over decades.

That relentless output was stalled, apparently by COVID, with only 2022’s somewhat throwaway Baker’s Dozen singles in the last six years. Thankfully, seventh album House Of Mirrors finds them in no rush to fix what ain’t broken.

Beginning with a deeply haunting, six-and-a-half-minute cover of traditional Appalachian folk song Red Rocking Chair, they plunge right back into the ghostly end of Americana, weighted to the bottom by a riff of which Coventry doom icons Cathedral would be proud. Culling Line picks up with creeping guitars that opens out into a wild squall, then full-on fuzz. The title of Aethernet feels like their only nod to modernity, but it’s a song that could be played wholly unplugged with pedal steel and banjo in hand. Hold Up, Say What? piles on some more playful, fast-moving grooves, before the ethereal Go-getter layers on a gauzy atmosphere.

Masterful as these 10 tracks will sound to aficionados, though, they cover undeniably well worn ground. The brilliantly bittersweet Starting Line and wonderfully playful retro-rock nugget Angel On The Wayside feel not just timeless, for instance, but like literally so many classics you’ve heard stream from the hissing radio waves before. Those without a taste for the truly old-school, meanwhile, needn’t bother as this unapologetically ain’t for them.

All that given, this is still strong, strong stuff from musicians stepping back into the light. Pugilistic penultimate track The Welterweight channels underdog spirit and a compellingly folksy narrative for one of the most memorable compositions this collective have committed to record. Then Saturn Song leaves off with irresistibly sonorous vocals and glimmering optimism. Proof that All Them Witches’ sunbeaten spell is still well worth falling under.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, King Buffalo, Elder

House Of Mirrors is released on May 29 via BMG.