There’s been some upheaval in All Them Witches since their last album, 2020’s Nothing As The Ideal. The following year, keyboard player Allan Van Cleave rejoined the band (he left in 2018), returning the line-up from a trio to a quartet. In 2024, drummer and founder member Robby Staebler departed under mysterious circumstances. “Very uncool shit was happening,” he later revealed, not revealing much.
Away from the HR department shenanigans, they released an album’s worth of material in 2022, a Baker’s Dozen of drip-fed tracks. Seemingly aimed at hard-core fans, it veered from a psychedelic, somewhat lascivious 12-minute cover of John Lee Hooker’s Blacksnake Blues to the frazzled jam of the 18-minute Acid Face, Television-meets-the Grateful Dead. Released as a limited-edition triple-vinyl set in 2023, copies are now available on Discogs for the best part of £1,000.
If Baker’s Dozen proved anything, it’s that All Them Witches certainly gave good length. And if new album House Of Mirrors proves anything, it’s that All Them Witches don’t need length to be effective. The constituent parts are predictable – psychedelia, blues, heavy rock and hypnotic groove – but the music isn’t, and is defined by unexpected twists, unlikely turns and bold choices.
Opener Red Rocking Chair – a reworking of a bluegrass standard made famous by Doc Watson – begins like Mark Langean at his most haunted, before pulling itself up to its full height via the doomiest of riffs, then retreats again, warped violin wrapping around gently pulsing guitar. Culling Line unfolds with a sense of enormous dread, drifting from an eerie vocal introduction that sounds like an import from 1920s Appalachia, to the kind of solo David Gilmour might dream up if he were impersonating Carlos Santana.
The racing Hold Up, Say What? is propelled by clattering ride cymbal from new drummer Christian Powers, and turns into full-on, Muse-style space-blast at the three-minute mark. The deftly plucked acoustic introduction to Starting Line throws another curve ball before the thunder arrives, while Turn On The Light chugs along like Morphine before clambering up through the gears like Queens Of The Stone Age.
House Of Mirrors is a thoroughly modern rock album, with roots deep in an older, more mysterious America. It’s also inviting and familiar without ever resorting to clichés or relying on traditional rock tropes. And it’s very, very good.
