Visalia, California, heavy rock traditionalists Westing release their new album, Future, on Feb. 24 through RidingEasy Records. The fourth album from the band overall, it’s also the first since they changed their name in 2021 from Slow Season, adopting the moniker from their till-now-most-recent LP, Westing (review here), which was released in 2016, and their first since welcoming All Them Witches guitarist Ben McLeod to the band with founding members guitarist/vocalist Daniel Story Rice, bassist Hayden Doyel and drummer Cody Tarbell, who also recorded the album and has worked with Cloud Catcher and others. Despite the rebrand, Future‘s nine-song/40-minute run remains loyal to their classically-inspired ethic, with a sound that’s growth malleable enough to position Tarbell‘s drums as the John Bonham stomp beneath opener “Back in the Twenties” as Future struts out of the gate, or turn twang into pastoral sentimentalism in the guitars of “Artemisia Coming Down.”

A tour de force for Rice vocally, from the soul-shouts in the leadoff to the attitude-croon of “Nothing New,” the hilarious-even-if-you’re-not-in-on-the-joke (and I’m not, so I’d know) chorus of, “There ain’t no Larry here,” in side B’s “Stanley Wu” and FM-radio-ready falsetto hook that opens wide in capping shuffle rocker “Coming Back to Me,” it is an album of mature performance and craft throughout — something that feels like it could only be made by a band who know who they are as artists and a group — but infectious in its energy just the same, with a sing-along call and response in centerpiece “Big Trouble (In the City of Love)” that, for as based around classic rocking ideals as it is, is so much more about right now than 50 years ago.

Tarbell‘s production, which is crisp, modern, clear and organic, helps assure that while Future is most certainly in conversation with the past and lyrics like those of “Back in the Twenties” place it squarely in the present — “Another lost generation/Here come the good times/Here come the fascists…” — its sound is nonetheless forward-looking in its realization of the material. It’s not futurist, or sci-fi, or cloyingly trying to be something other than it is for artsy kudos. In the spirit of, say, a band dropping an established moniker after about a decade and moving ahead with a new one, Future is unhindered by its classic aspects.

One would be hard-pressed to think of another American band working at Westing‘s level in the stylistic niche they are. In Europe, the names come easier, with the likes of Graveyard, Kadavar, and hosts of others, but especially on this record, the band distinguish themselves in method and dynamic from the underground pack on either continent. And more than the sound of Future, it’s the songs. After “Back in the Twenties” gives over to the fuzzier but likewise memorable rollout of “Nothing New,” they turn to the atmospheric “Lost Riders Intro,” a two-minute stretch of ambient guitar and drone ahead of “Lost Riders” itself, the central riff there seeming to call out Journey and Thin Lizzy via The Lord Weird Slough Feg (the latter is a stretch, but it’s there) with a moodier stateliness.

The party picks up as “Big Trouble (In the City of Love)” revives the Zeppelin thread to finish out side A — and the aforementioned “Stanley Wu” will make you believe dancing days are here again in short order — but though “Lost Riders” is shorter than “Nothing New,” its dual guitar leads and methodical delivery are neither as upbeat as much of what surrounds nor lost in a brooding mire, establishing a kind of middle ground that pushes outward the expectations for the rest of Future to come, so that when they hit into “Artemisia Coming Down” with its mellow, atmospheric beginning, graceful melody and highlight finishing solo, there’s precedent for the going.

Leading side B, “Artemisia Coming Down” — on the vinyl, “Lost Riders Intro” is integrated into “Lost Riders” as well, so it breaks down to four cuts on each side, eight total; of course it matters less when you’re listening to the album straight through — is another classic turn that Westing make theirs, fleshing out the mood of “Lost Riders” while shifting toward a direction of its own, smoothly shifting into the acoustic-led “Silent Shout,” which makes its title into a kind of single-breath repetition, almost an afterthought worked into its verse lines, so that by the last time it comes around near the song’s finish, it’s expected and welcome, a particularly floaty ’70s dreaminess that also serves to set up the arena-style chorus of “Coming Back to Me,” after the uptick in physical movement that “Stanley Wu” brings. An homage to a local bartender of the same name, its lyrics are less generally relatable, perhaps, than some of the material here, but it’s easy to get wrapped up in the title character’s persona as channeled through the band’s. To put it another way, they bring you into the place, the bar, the character, the story.

This is true of Future across its entire span, and it comes back to the quality of songwriting at work. Many aspects of Westing‘s sound are pointedly not revolutionary. They are classic heavy rockers playing to that ideal, less now than when Slow Season released 2014’s Mountains (review here), perhaps, but they know where their roots lie nonetheless. And as the already noted shuffle of “Coming Back to Me” lets its tension go for that chorus about being free, they make you believe it. Not everybody can do that, in this microgenre or any other, let alone turn the song back around to its boogie and proceed onward like nothing ever happened, until the next chorus arrives. And not for want of trying.

To call it graceful would maybe undercut some of the edges purposefully left rougher — like how the kick drum in “Back in the Twenties” is supposed to thud like that, and the back and forth of “more” and “never enough” in “Big Trouble (In the City of Love),” with “more” throaty and held out so that it’s “moh-ore” with Rice answering himself before McLeod rips out neither the first nor the last righteous solo — but it is lucid and tasteful. Westing may be a new incarnation of what Slow Season was, but part of that is the clear benefit of that band’s experience and chemistry that’s on display throughout these tracks, even with the change in personnel involved in making the record. It moves you like the best of rock and roll can, makes you remember why you fell in love with groove in the first place, and whether it’s up or down at a given moment, or raucous or subdued, it’s got its heart right on its sleeve and craft that’s in a class of its own. One would be a fool to ask more of them than they give here.

The video for “Back in the Twenties” premieres below, followed by the band’s bio… which I wrote. That’s right. It’s a bio I wrote, and I’m posting it under the review of the album, which I also wrote (just now, in fact). In the interest of full disclosure, I was compensated for writing the bio (it’s why I put the bio in blue, to distinguish that promotional content from this editorial content), and in the interest of context, I’ll point you back to that 2014 review to stand for how long I’ve been writing about the band before I got a Paypal kick to do it for the text below. I don’t know if it matters, but there you go.

Enjoy:

Westing, “Back in the Twenties” video premiere

“We’ve never been averse to a self-imposed challenge, really.” – Daniel Story Rice, Westing

Late in 2021, Slow Season announced they’d become Westing, and that Ben McLeod (also of Nashville’s All Them Witches) was now in the four-piece on lead guitar alongside guitarist, vocalist and keyboardist Daniel Story Rice, bassist Hayden Doyel and drummer/recording engineer Cody Tarbell. Their new LP (fourth overall for RidingEasy), Future, is not coincidentally titled.

Says Rice, “We wanted to hit the reset button on some things and so we included a new band name to that list. Fresh start, for the psychological effect of it. We first met Ben in 2014 opening for All Them Witches in San Diego, and we did that again in 2016 and he and Cody corresponded about tape machines, music production, and other similar nerd stuff. We started swapping a few ideas early in 2021 and then flew him out for four days in August 2021. We got Future mostly down in that short span and did some remote stuff for overdubs, but nothing major. Obviously, our creative processes jelled pretty well to allow for such an efficiently productive session.”

So the story of Westing, and of Future, is about change, but the music makes itself so immediately familiar, it’s so welcoming, that it hardly matters. For about 10 years, the Visalia, California, outfit wandered the earth representing a new generational interpretation of classic heavy rock. The tones, warm. The melodies, sweet. The boogie, infectious. They went to ground after supporting their 2016 self-titled third album, and clearly it was time for something different.

Listening to Future opener “Back in the Twenties,” the message comes through clear (and loud) that however much Westing’s foundations might be in ‘70s styles, the moment that matters is now. It’s the future we’re living in, not the future that was. The big Zeppelin vibes at the outset and on “Big Trouble (In the City of Love)” and the local-bartender remembrance “Stanley Wu,” the dare-to-sound-like-Rocka-Rolla “Lost Riders” and the softshoe-ready shuffle of “Coming Back to Me” that leads into the payoff solo for the entire record, on and on; these pieces feed into an entirety that’s somehow loyal to homage while embodying a vitality that can only live up to the title they’ve given it.

“To me, ‘future’ is a word that embodies both hope and dread,” explains Rice, “and the future seems to be coming at us pretty quick these days. In some ways, it really feels like I am living in “the future,” as if I time traveled here and don’t really belong. That feeling pervades this band’s ethos in some ways. I thought Instagram was a steep climb until I met TikTok.”

Is Future the future? Hell, we should be so lucky. What Westing manifest in these songs is schooled in the rock of yore and theirs purely, and in that, Future looks forward with the benefit of the lessons learned across three prior full-lengths (and the accompanying tours) while offering the kind of freshness that comes with a debut. No, they’re not the same kids who released Mountains in 2014, and the tradeoff is being able to convey maturity, evolving creativity and stage-born dynamic on Future without sacrificing the spirit and passion that has underscored their work all along. – Words by JJ Koczan

Westing on Facebook

Westing on Instagram

Westing on YouTube

Westing on Bandcamp

RidingEasy Records on Facebook

RidingEasy Records on Instagram

RidingEasy Records on Bandcamp

RidingEasy Records website

Every now and again I get lucky and I do a bio like this, turn it in, and word comes back and it’s all, ‘hey that’s awesome all set on this end thanks here’s some cash.’ This was not one of those cases. I also wrote the bio for All Them Witches‘ 2018 album, ATW (review here), but still, this was a different story to tell and wanted to be told in a different way. The band had things they wanted to say. The label had things they felt needed to be said. And I had a few points as well to get across about Nothing as the Ideal, which is out Sept. 4 on New West Records, whether it was about their making an album as a three-piece for the first time, their ongoing progression, tape-loop experimentation, or the simple fact that they recorded at frickin’ Abbey Road. There’s usually a fair amount to talk about with these guys, but this time around it seems like even more so.

But we got there, which is what matters. In the end, I went through a couple of drafts, interviewed Robby Staebler and Ben McLeod both, then ended up completely scrapping what I had and starting over. That, of course, was the final version. It was my favorite too.

And here it is:

All Them Witches – Nothing as the Ideal bio

From the brimming light of the lead guitar on opener “Saturnine & Iron Jaw” to the mellow grunge unfolding in the finale “Rats in Ruin,” Nothing as the Ideal is a signature All Them Witches release, which of course means it sounds like nothing they’ve ever done before.

The Nashville trio thrive on contrast. Now six records deep into a tenure that began in 2012, they are unremittingly forward-looking, and while signature elements can be found throughout Nothing as the Ideal – from guitarist Ben McLeod’s prog-tinged explorations to the slacker-soul vocals of bassist Charles Michael Parks, Jr., to the restless energy and rhythmic nuance in Robby Staebler’s drum patterns – it is also their most experimental work to-date.

But contrast is the key: Tape loops coincide with unplugged minimalism. They recorded it in a strange place with a familiar producer. It’s their heaviest album marked by their broadest atmospheres, intimate and pummeling. It is unquestionably theirs even as it will no doubt engender ownership in anyone who hears it.

Nothing as the Ideal might forever be known as “the album All Them Witches made at Abbey Road.” Fair enough. You don’t record in a legendary studio surrounded by mics The Beatles used, sitting on the bench where John Lennon tracked the acoustic guitar for “A Day in the Life” without acknowledging that history. There’s no getting away from it.

Where Nothings as the Ideal triumphs, however, is in making that space and that history the band’s own. Working with Mikey Allred, who previously produced 2015’s New West label debut, Dying Surfer Meets His Maker, and has done other mixing and mastering along the way, All Them Witches not only did justice to the moment they were capturing – the sheer adventure of being there, doing that thing – but answered the call of their inspiration as they always do.

It wasn’t supposed to be that way. The idea was to take time, do it themselves. But after spending the early part of 2019 constructing a studio in a church outside Nashville where Staebler was living and writing, writing, writing, the band came up against the deadline of a 35-date European arena tour with Ghost and had the single “1×1” to show for it. They put that song out, did a video, and after the tour, redirected their purposes. With the momentum of playing every night behind them, Nothing as the Ideal at last began to take shape.

Abbey Road might not have been the plan, but with the harder deadline of recording dates locked in, All Them Witches were able to focus more clearly. It wasn’t about applying pressure, but about doing what best served the songs. With Allred as the trusted party at the helm, they succeeded in crafting a defining moment for who they are as a band, with each player’s personality coming together to create a fluidity that is unique unto them.

Whatever they’ve done in the past, whatever they’ll do next, Nothing as the Ideal epitomizes the literal and figurative journey All Them Witches have made, and it is to be treasured all the more for that.

All Them Witches, “Lights Out”

All Them Witches, “The Children of Coyote Woman” official video

All Them Witches, “Saturnine & Iron Jaw”

All Them Witches on Thee Facebooks

All Them Witches on Bandcamp

All Them Witches on Instagram

New West Records website

Today marks the release date of Worshipper‘s second album, Light in the Wire (review here). Out on Tee Pee Records, it lands immediately following the return of the Boston four-piece from a European tour alongside labelmates The Skull that included stops at Desertfest in London and Berlin to follow-up on both bands’ appearance at the inaugural Desertfest NYC a few weeks back (review here).

The release will be celebrated tonight in Cambridge, MA, with a live in-store performance at Newbury Comics in Harvard Square. The retail outlet also has an exclusive color vinyl edition available that looks just lovely in the pictures that I’ve seen. I was fortunate enough to be asked when they were putting the promo package together to write the bio for the album, and I did so happily.

For the occasion of the release, here’s that bio I wrote, as it appears currently on their Bandcamp page:

Worshipper – Light in the Wire bio

Whatever frame you want to give it, Worshipper’s story is one of growth. What started four years ago with a couple digital singles has blossomed — yes, blossomed — into an expansive and individualized sound that’s like nothing else in heavy rock and roll. With patient and graceful songwriting, and thoughtful, detailed arrangements, the Boston-based four-piece bring something new to the hordes of those building altars to the capital ‘r’ Riff. Their second album, Light in the Wire, presents a progressive vision that’s not just about “oh hey we threw a keyboard on some guitar,” but instead bleeds into every melody, every smoothly-delivered rhythmic change, and every performance captured on the recording.

Worshipper’s first album, Shadow Hymns, came out in 2016 on Tee Pee, and they followed it with the 2017 covers EP Mirage Daze, a four-song jaunt exploring influences like Pink Floyd, The Who, Uriah Heep and doom rockers The Oath. That release gave new context to Shadow Hymns, and it informs Light in the Wire as well, though with the new LP, Worshipper are most recognizable as themselves.

Led by would-be-reluctant-were-it-not-for-all-that-pesky-stage-presence frontman John Brookhouse (guitar/vocals/synth), with Alejandro Necochea on lead guitar/synth, Bob Maloney on bass and backing vocals and Dave Jarvis on drums, Worshipper recorded Light in the Wire with Chris Johnson (also of Deafheaven, Summoner, etc.) at GodCity Studios and The Electric Bunker. Their intention to capture a sonic narrative has resulted in a fluidity tying the two sides of the album together even as individual pieces stand out with a sheen of classic heavy metal, rock, psychedelia and prog. At the center, always, is the crafting of the songs themselves, so that each verse isn’t simply a placeholder for the next hook, but a statement unto itself, and each solo drips soul rather than devolving into a needless showcase of wankery.

Light in the Wire not only sees Worshipper grow as songwriters and performers, but it expands the palette they’re working with to do that. A stage-born chemistry pervades their musical conversation, but even more, the confidence with which they take on darkness and light, weight and drift, brings into focus how faithworthy their sound has become. They may push farther still, but hearing Light in the Wire leaves no question of their realization.

-JJ Koczan

https://www.facebook.com/worshipperband/
https://www.instagram/worshipperband
https://worshipper.bandcamp.com/
http://teepeerecords.com

Worshipper, Light in the Wire (2019)

I was fortunate enough to be asked to write the bio for the new Nebula album. It’s called Holy Shit — fair enough, at least given my response to its existence, let alone actually hearing the damn thing — and it’ll be out June 7 through Heavy Psych Sounds. I’ve written bios for the likes of Gary Arce, Brant Bjork, Conan, Neurosis, All Them Witches and too many others to count, but I put having a hand, even in this small way, in the first Nebula record in a decade feels pretty special. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to do so. All the more because the record kicks ass.

Album details came through the PR wire just now, and here’s the bio I wrote to go with them. Thanks for reading:

NEBULA share first track and details for new studio album ‘Holy Shit’; preorders live now on Heavy Psych Sounds Records!

We are very excited to announce that the heavy pscyh masters Nebula are coming back after 10 years with a brand new album !!!
Holy Shit will see the light on 7th June via Heavy Psych Sounds.

PRESALE STARTS TODAY:
https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/

USA PRESALE (link active soon)
https://allthatisheavy.com/search?type=product&q=nebula&fbclid=IwAR2hwfFUlonDcpszgrVFl0RaOxDw47GjZmKtheM4N3hHladsVML9APP794c

AVAILABLE IN:
50 TEST PRESS VINYL
250 ULTRA LTD PINK FLUO VINYL
250 ULTRA LTD WHITE MARBLED/PINK FLUO VINYL
650 TRANSPARENT SPLATTER BLACK AND PINK FLUO VINYL
BLACK VINYL
DIGIPAK (6 panels)
DIGITAL

**All vinyls in gatefold sleeve**

Nebula Holy Shit Bio
22 years after their first release and 10 years after their last album, Nebula are back. And you’re thinking “Holy shit!” right now, you pretty much nailed it.

Holy Shit is Nebula’s first LP since 2009’s Heavy Psych, and it quickly puts to rest the question that’s loomed since guitarist/vocalist Eddie Glass, bassist Tom Davies and drummer Michael Amster announced the band’s reformation in 2017. Nebula are still Nebula.

It’s there in the inimitable space-grunge of “It’s all Over,” or the take-a-drag-and-be-gone “Let’s Get Lost,” or the way “Tomorrow Never Comes” manages to be so, so heavy and laid back at the same time. It’s in the paradise-psych of “Gates of Eden” and even the snoring you hear before the devilish “Man’s Best Friend” kicks in to open the album (the studio couch became a crash spot).

Since the days of 1998’s Let it Burn EP and the now-classic To the Center debut album, Nebula have always been just a little more dangerous. Just a little more unhinged. Holy Shit shows this front-to-back for the essential part of their character it is, and yet it’s not trying to be anything they’ve done before, whether it’s those early outings or Heavy Psych or Charged (2001), Apollo (2003) or Atomic Ritual (2005). It’s a sixth Nebula album — something for which even the most ardent of fans could hardly have hoped.

The basic tracks were done in two days, recorded at Mysterious Mammal Studios in L.A. with Matt Lynch (also of Snail) at the helm. Leads and loops and feedback effects were done live by Glass and Davies as they recorded the basic tracks, just the way they’d do it on stage, and overdubs followed after as needed. A glut of material was produced and whittled down to the core of what you hear here. A sixth Nebula album.

And when you hear it, you’ll find yourself saying that title all over again.

NEBULA is:
Eddie Glass (guitars-vocals)
Tom Davies (bass-backing vocals)
Michael Amster (drums)

https://www.facebook.com/NebulaBand/
https://twitter.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUND
https://instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/
https://heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/
http://www.heavypsychsounds.com/

It was just a couple months ago that I was last heaping retrospective praise on Iota‘s Tales full-length, which was originally released by Small Stone Records in 2008. Needless to say, then, that when the label came around and asked if I had anything to say about a vinyl reissue in the works, I mashed my forehead into my keyboard until a bunch of nonsensical fanboyism could be deciphered by a trained team of baboons, syllable by syllable. Something like that. It may have been orangutans.

The important factor, more even than the fact that this is a “Thing I Wrote” post, which are always a little jolt to my fragile-manchild ego, is that said LP edition of Tales will be out on March 15. In my head, this will play out to massive fanfare and the discovery of a kickass band with untold potential being discovered by a new generation of fans, leading to a reunion, a vital new album and a tour on — why not? — a comfortable bus, maybe shared with Monster Magnet or someone like that. Sounds good? Sounds good to me.

Maybe that’s how it goes. Maybe if you tell two friends and they tell two friends and they tell two friends we’ll all invent the internet. I don’t know. But it’s been 11 years and Tales is still due more acknowledgement than it’s gotten.

Here’s the bio I wrote as circled back through the PR wire with the release info:

IOTA: Small Stone Recordings To Release Tales Full-Length From Cult Stoner Metal Collective On Limited-Edition Vinyl This March; Preorders Available

When IOTA’s Tales was first released more than a decade ago, it immediately heralded a change in the scope of heavy rock ‘n’ roll. From the hard punch of its opening duo “New Mantis” and “We Are The Yithians,” it departed into three extended cuts that drew together already-classic elements of weighted riffs with a doors-thrown-open sense of space and jammed into scorched-solo psychedelic oblivion. With Joey Toscano, who’d go on to form Dwellers, on guitar and vocals, the suitably wizardly Oz on bass, and recording engineer Andy Patterson, who soon enough would join SubRosa, IOTA raised a monolith of singular intent and showed throughout Tales a potential that was entirely their own.

The Salt Lake City trio had been around for over five years by then, having formed in 2002 and released two demos before the album as they earned local praise and found themselves supporting the likes of Brant Bjork, High On Fire, Black Cobra, Eternal Elysium, The Sword, and others. And that’s all well and good, but it would be Tales that defined them, whether it was “The Sleeping Heathen” started off at a sprint on its ten-minute run, “Opiate Blues” sure enough finding room for some harp alongside its dirt-covered riffs and foresight-laden heavy blues pulsations, or the massive sprawl of the twenty-two-minute “Dimensional Orbiter” that dream-jammed its way toward the outer reaches of cosmic sensation. Tantric, broad, and a gorgeous showcase of a dynamic ready to storm the earth, it helped earn Iota a cult following that persists over ten years later.

And along with anyone else who might be fortunate to stumble upon it, that cult, quite frankly, deserves to have Tales on vinyl. This is the first official LP release of the album, so call it a reissue or don’t. It doesn’t matter. Music this good exists out of time, and whether IOTA’s Tales is new to a listener or a well-kept secret regarded as a classic unto itself, it still sounds as far-reaching as it did when the band unfurled it the first time around. It wasn’t to be missed then. It’s not to be missed now [words by JJ Koczan].

Small Stone Recordings will release IOTA’s Tales full-length on vinyl for the first time ever on March 15th. Limited to 500 units in a clear with black swirl color combination, Tales was remastered for vinyl by Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio in Ann Arbor, Michican with the original running order of the album slightly altered to fit on the LP format.

For preorders and to stream Tales in its entirety go to THIS LOCATION.

Tales Track Listing:
Side A:
1. New Mantis
2. The Sleeping Heathen
3. Opiate Blues
Side B:
4. Dimensional Orbiter
5. We Are The Yithians

IOTA is:
Joey Toscano – guitars, vocals
Oz – bass
Andy Patterson – drums

http://www.smallstone.com
http://www.facebook.com/smallstonerecords
http://www.smallstone.bandcamp.com

Iota, Tales (2008/2019)

A couple months back, I had the distinct pleasure of being asked to write the bio for the next All Them Witches album. Titled simply ATW, it’s a marked shift in approach from the preceding Sleeping Through the War (review here) not only in that it marks the introduction of Jonathan Draper on keys, but also in terms of overall production. Helmed by guitarist Ben McLeod, it’s the first time the Nashville four-piece have recorded themselves for a full-length offering. It pulls back on some of its predecessor’s more elaborate, “produced” feel and instead captures the natural interplay between the four members of the band. In short, it’s a more live-sounding, stage-ready album. And obviously I jumped at the chance to write the bio for it.

ATW is out Sept. 28 on New West Records. You can stream the opening track “Fishbelly 86 Onions” at the bottom of this post, and thanks for reading:

All Them Witches – ATW

By most bands’ fifth LP, the sound is pretty set. Parameters established. Refinement dissipated in favor of formulaic execution of what’s worked in the past. Fair enough. All Them Witches take a harder route.

In 2017, the Nashville four-piece offered what might’ve otherwise become their own template in their fourth album, Sleeping Through The War. Their second for New West Records following 2015’s mellow-vibing Dying Surfer Meets His Maker, Sleeping brought larger production value to dug-in heavy psych blues jamming with oversight from producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson).

After exploring new ground on 2013’s Lightning At The Door and 2012’s Our Mother Electricity as well as Dying Surfer, with Sleeping the band had arrived at something new, something sprawling, and grander-feeling than anything before it.

So naturally, in a year’s time they’ve thrown that all to the Appalachian wind, turned the process completely on its head and reversed paths: recording in a cabin in Kingston Springs, about 20 miles outside of Nashville on I-40, with guitarist Ben McLeod at the helm. Take that, expectation.

The result, mixed by Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith, Kurt Vile), is the most intimate, human-sounding album All Them Witches have ever recorded and another redefinition of the band. Introducing keyboardist/percussionist Jonathan Draper to the fold with McLeod, bassist/vocalist Charles Michael Parks, Jr., and drummer/graphic artist Robby Staebler, the new eponymous record isn’t self-titled by mistake. It’s the band confirming and continuing to develop their approach, in the shuffle of “Fishbelly 86 Onions,” the organ-laced groove of “Half-Tongue,” the tense build of “HJTC” and the fluid jam in closer “Rob’s Dream.”

It’s a reaction to being a “bigger” band. To playing bigger shows, bigger tours, etc. From the sustained consonants in Parks’ vocals to McLeod’s commanding slide in “Workhorse” and drifting melancholy at the outset of “Harvest Feast,” All Them Witches is there laying claim to the essential facets of their identity. And the urgency of these tracks – fast pushers and sleepy jams alike – is among their greatest strengths.

It’s a rawer delivery, as stage-ready as the band itself, and as ever, it captures All Them Witches in this moment. Is it who they’ll be tomorrow? Who the hell knows? Check back in and we’ll all find out together. That’s the whole idea.

TRACKLIST:
Fishbelly 86 Onions
Workhorse
1st vs. 2nd
Half-Tongue
Diamond
Harvest Feast
HJTC
Rob’s Dream

All Them Witches is:
Charles Michael Parks, Jr
Ben McLeod
Robby Staebler
Jonathan Draper

http://allthemwitches.bandcamp.com/
http://www.facebook.com/allthemwitches
https://www.instagram.com/allthemwitchesband/
https://twitter.com/allthemwitches
http://www.allthemwitches.org/

All Them Witches, ATW (2018)

At this point in what might be generously called my ‘career,’ I’ve written biographies for the likes of Neurosis, Electric Citizen, Kings Destroy, Gary Arce of Yawning Man, Alunah, Mondo Drag, Conan, Egypt, Lo-Pan, Wo Fat, Alexander von Wieding, and countless others when one considers things like festival announcements and press releases and other such and sundries I’ve put together. It’s extra work, but I enjoy it. For one thing, it’s nice to be thought of and asked. For another, it’s a chance to cross an editorial boundary and directly help an artist tell their own story, as opposed to trying to stand back and analyze it from as much distance as possible, as one might with a standard review. What does this person want to say about who and where they are creatively, and how can I bring that out in words?

I’ve posted numerous bios I’ve written here before, but it was a singular honor to be asked to compose a biography for Brant Bjork ahead of what looks to be a busy 2017 for him, between his Desert Generator fest (info here), recently-announced US tour (dates here), and the inevitable further activity that will surface as he continues to support last year’s excellent Tao of the Devil (review here) on Napalm Records. The chance to explore what might be desert rock’s most pivotal singular legacy — really, when you look at his raw discography, it’s staggering — was an opportunity to be relished, and having turned it over and gotten approval for a finished draft, I thought I’d share it with you.

A moment of self-indulgence on my part, probably, but I thank you as always for the allowance and for reading. If you have any thoughts on it, any and all comments are welcome.

It starts after the picture:

Brant Bjork Bio 2017

With Tao of the Devil, Brant Bjork reconfirms his position as the Godfather of Desert Groove. Across sprawling jams and classic rockers, the multi-instrumentalist frontman celebrates the other, the self and the Californian landscape he calls home, following 2014’s Black Power Flower – his first album for Napalm Records – with an even more resounding execution of memorable songcraft and inimitable, heavy vibe. In the company of The Low Desert Punk Band, he brings to bear the fruits of one of rock and roll’s most storied careers and, as he always does, pushes forward in ongoing, seemingly unstoppable growth.

Brant Bjork has spent over a quarter-century at the epicenter of Californian desert rock. From cutting his teeth alongside Fatso Jetson’s Mario Lalli in hardcore punkers De-Con to drumming and composing on Kyuss’ landmark early albums, to propelling the seminal fuzz of Fu Manchu from 1994-2001 while producing other bands, putting together offshoot projects like Ché, embarking on his solo career as a singer, guitarist and bandleader, founding his own record label and more, his history is a winding narrative of relentless, unflinching creativity.

For someone so outwardly laid back, he’s never really taken a break. And while Bjork has shown different sides of himself on albums like his funk-laden 1999 solo debut, Jalamanta, the mellow Local Angel (2004), 2007’s mostly-acoustic Tres Dias, and heavier rockers Somera Sól (2007), Gods & Goddesses (2010) and the two most recent outings with The Low Desert Punk Band, he’s maintained a natural representation of himself in his material, whether that’s coming across in the Thin Lizzy-isms of the faux-full-band 2002 release Brant Bjork and the Operators (actually just Bjork playing mostly by himself) or the weedy, in-the-jam-room spirit of “Dave’s War” from Tao of the Devil. When you’re listening to Brant Bjork, you know it, because there’s no one else who sounds quite like him.

That fact and years of hard touring have positioned Brant Bjork as an ambassador for the Southern California desert and the musical movement birthed there in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. As underground interest has surged in recent years, Bjork has been a pivotal figurehead, realigning with his former Kyuss bandmate John Garcia to drum and write in Kyuss Lives!/Vista Chino, celebrating and building on that legacy while giving a new generation of fans the chance to see it happen in real-time.

Having told his story in films like Kate McCabe’s Sabbia (2006) and the documentaries Such Hawks Such Hounds (2008) and Lo Sound Desert (2015), he’s represented desert rock at home and abroad with no less honesty than that which he poured into the music helping to create it. The same impulse led to the founding of his Desert Generator in 2016, an annual festival held in Pioneertown, CA, with an international reach capturing the intimacy and timeless aura of the desert culture, including music, a van show in conjunction with Rolling Heavy magazine, the Stoned & Dusted pre-show in the wilderness, and an evolution that looks to continue into the foreseeable future.

Bjork’s work, with any project, has always had a rebellious sensibility. He’s always walked his own path. But more, his career through Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Ché, Vista Chino, and his crucial solo work has been about freedom through rock and roll, attained by the truest representation of the person and the place as art. This, along with a whole lot of groove, is what has helped Brant Bjork define desert rock as a worldwide phenomenon, and whatever comes next, it is what will continue to make him its most indispensable practitioner.

Brant Bjork on Thee Facebooks

Brant Bjork website

Desert Generator fest website

Napalm Records website

I gotta say, of the several band bios I’ve been fortunate enough to be asked to write over the last couple years — for Neurosis, for Conan, for Wo Fat, etc. — the one below for Lo-Pan‘s upcoming fourth album, Colossus, was among the easiest. It required little flourish, as the band’s accomplishments since the release of 2011’s Salvador (review here) speak for themselves, and the record itself is so direct and driving, that to pepper the piece with a bunch of extra descriptors or grandiose language would immediately be overdoing it. And one doesn’t want to overdo it.

Last Friday evening, Lo-Pan announced they’d be supporting Black Cobra for a month on the road ahead of Colossus‘ Oct. 7 release on Small Stone, and you’ll find those dates under the bio below, which I’ll keep in PR wire blue even though it’s my byline, just for form’s sake:

Lo-Pan, Colossus bio:

Lo-Pan’s fourth album, Colossus, is named for the Colossus of Rhodes – a 96-foot statue constructed in 280 BC to mark a failed siege and the indomitable nature of the city of Rhodes itself. No surprise it’s the Columbus, Ohio, four-piece’s most personal album yet and a testament to their growth and survival, as a band and as human beings.

Three years on from their third record, Salvador, Lo-Pan have logged countless miles, crossing the country multiple times over on headlining tours and supporting the likes of Torche, High on Fire, KENmode, Whores, Fu Manchu and Weedeater. They’ve become one of the most ferocious live acts in American heavy rock, and Colossus stands tall to reap the rewards of their experience.

For the first time in nearly a decade together, Lo-Pan knew exactly what they wanted when they hit the studio. They’d road-tested songs like “Eastern Seas” and “Colossus” for over a year, and partnering with producer/engineer Andrew Schneider at his Translator Audio studio in Brooklyn just days after headlining Small Stone showcases in that city and Boston this March, they belted out songs that show just how much they’ve moved beyond their influences and arrived at their own sound – a style built on aggression without caricature, fuzz without cliché, melody without redundancy and their meanest groove to date.

Completed with a cover courtesy of Jason Alexander Byers (ex-Disengage, Black Black Black), Colossus will be supported by numerous tours including a full US stint this fall alongside fellow road dogs Black Cobra and much more to come. Like its namesake, Colossus was built in defiance of gods and men, and while Lo-Pan’s loudest statement has always been made on stage, the material they craft and the power with which they execute it on this album is bound to stand for years to come.

BLACK COBRA US Tour w/ Lo Pan:
8/28/2014 Club Red – Phoenix, AZ
8/29/2014 Sister – Albuquerque, NM
8/30/2014 Conservatory – Oklahoma City, OK
8/31/2014 Doublewide – Dallas, TX
9/02/2014 Red 7 – Austin, TX
9/03/2014 Fitzgeralds – Houston, TX
9/04/2014 Siberia – New Orleans, LA
9/05/2014 Handlebar – Pensacola, FL
9/06/2014 Orpheum – Tampa, FL
9/07/2014 Gramps – Miami, FL
9/08/2014 Back Booth – Orlando, FL
9/09/2014 529 – Atlanta, GA
9/10/2014 The Mothlight – Asheville, NC
9/11/2014 Chop Shop – Charlotte, NC
9/12/2014 Strange Matter – Richmond, VA
9/13/2014 The Pinch – Washington, DC
9/14/2014 Dusk – Providence, RI
9/15/2014 Nectars – Burlington, VT
9/16/2014 TT The Bears – Boston, MA
9/17/2014 Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA
9/18/2014 Saint Vitus – New York, NY
9/19/2014 Lost Horizon – Syracuse, NY
9/20/2014 Bug Jar – Rochester, NY
9/22/2014 Howlers – Pittsburgh, PA
9/23/2014 Reggie’s – Chicago, IL
9/24/2014 7th St Entry – Minneapolis, MN
9/26/2014 Replay – Lawrence, KS
9/27/2014 Lost Lake Lounge – Denver, CO
9/28/2014 Burt’s Tiki Bar – Salt Lake City, UT
9/29/2014 Dive Bar – Las Vegas, NV
10/01/2014 The Garage – Ventura, CA
10/02/2014 New Parish – Oakland, CA

https://www.facebook.com/lopandemic
http://smallstone.com/

Lo-Pan, “Eastern Seas” Live at Ralph’s Diner