All Them Witches earn immediate distinction for being the first American band signed to German heavy psych purveyors Elektrohasch Schallplatten. Endorsement from the label of Colour Haze guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek, which has released albums from My Sleeping Karma, Sungrazer, Rotor, Been Obscene and The Machine – essentially casting the blueprint by which a goodly portion of the up and coming European scene is built – goes a long way in my book, and the feat is even more impressive when one considers that the Nashville four-piece’s debut full-length, Our Mother Electricity (produced by the band with Andy Putnam), sounds so distinctly American. They’re not the first to use the wordplay, but in calling their approach “psychedelta rock,” neither are All Them Witches inaccurate. Swampy blues is definitely a major element in what they do, but along with that and the heavy psych aspect to their sound, there’s also a dynamic sense of Americana in the songwriting, taking hold either in the twang of centerpiece “Elk Blood Heart” or the countrified moaning and Skynyrd solo bursting out of closer “Right Hand.” Our Mother Electricity was originally released by the band last summer, and along with the bonus cut, the Elektrohasch version also boasts new artwork courtesy of Mat Bethancourt (Cherry Choke, ex-Josiah) and a new mastering job. Among the album’s central appeals is the fact that it never actually seems at rest, and through the 45-minute duration, All Them Witches show little interest in telegraphing their next move. To wit, the shift from eight-and-a-half-minute jam “Until it Unwinds” – the title perhaps referencing the tape on which the song was recorded – moving into the quiet, desert-hued soul of “Easy.” It’s just one of several complicated transitions All Them Witches pull off with what can only be called swagger, guitarist Ben McLeod and bassist Michael Parks trading vocal lines and frequently layering one voice on the other. On the album, the band is completed by drummer Robby Staebler and keyboardist Allan Van Cleave (Jason Staebler has since joined, presumably on second guitar), and in the natural, unfolding process of these tracks, no single contribution to the whole is inconsiderable. Vocals start opener “Heavy Like a Witch” sounding almost like a harmonica, and with a fuzzy guitar, the song is gradually introduced as a fitting opener for Our Mother Electricity in balancing heaviness and a rural sensibility.

As for comparison points, one can find pieces from Our Mother Electricity in the work of bands like Pennsylvania’s Pearls and Brass, who also proffer a sonic allegiance to blues rock, or in the heavy Southern prog builds that North Carolina’s Caltrop sometimes enact, but All Them Witches aren’t directly relatable to either of those acts, offsetting these with backwoods stomp and concurrent noisy crunch. Following an organ solo over chugging riffage, “Heavy Like a Witch” gives way to the more memorable “The Urn,” a standout of the album that stops around the line in its chorus, “I’ll put your ashes in an urn.” This and the following “Bloodhounds” are the shortest tracks on the album at around 3:30, but both still have time to develop a progression of their own, the former delving into slide guitar grooving à la Clutch’s blues fetishizing – the lyrics more assuring that threatening as the line noted above might suggest – and the latter driven forward by Staebler’s snare and a funky guitar wail quick to solo and answer its own leads with start-stop verse grooving. The riff is simple and effective, and Parks fills out the low end excellently, foreshadowing the distorted shouts that arise to announce the fuller apex of the track, also topped by a guitar solo. In the last 15 or so seconds of the song, they bring back the start-stop groove of the verse and it’s as swift and righteous as turn as I’ve heard yet this year – more so as it leads to the moodier “Guns,” which is pushed along at a deceptively quick pace by a quieter low end line and subdued initial vocal. For the second verse, whispers join the central line reminding of some of Queens of the Stone Age’s vocal arrangements, but there’s a build at work too as the lead guitar line feeds back over the blues jamming midpoint and the vocals take a more active approach. The established rolling groove ends and “Guns” caps with a faster stoner riff from McLeod that the drums make individual, and “Elk Blood Heart” takes hold to begin its own build – the best of the album – from the boldest of starting points: bare silence.

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