All Them Witches photo by Le Crowley
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER –
All Them Witches offer up a powerfully hypnotic blend of psychedelia, blues and hard rock to create a potion of staggering proportions. The four piece hailing from Nashville, USA grace the UK with their latest tour and Manchester’s Deaf Institute is their home for the evening.
Their latest tour comes on the back of the release of a live album on 16th September 2016; the 14 track offering was recorded at their gig at Ancienne Belgique, Brussels in March 2016 and encapsulates their live performance in such a way that any listener would be keen to see it for themselves. With this being their first tour off the North American continent, they are keen to impress and the packed venue demonstrates how eagerly their sound has been lapped up.
With some technical gremlins causing guitar chaos early on, they soon get into the flow and ‘Charles William’ is an early stand out track with its haunting vocal swoons running in the background of guitar slides and a persistent bass line. An elevated Robby Staebler pounds the drums with full intensity and the noise emanating from the stage is deafening at times. ‘The Death Of Coyote Woman’ has a guitar riff courtesy of Ben McLeod so pleasing it could grace any Hollywood film score with ease, and its deliverance here tonight has gone down a storm.
‘Mountain’ has a pleasing lo-fi vibe and minimal vocals and often features in their live performances; the crowd swoon along happily as the music takes over and fills the room. The change of tempo as the track concludes increases the intensity and before long bodies are jumping and heads are banging.
Playing several songs which they just refers to as “Here’s a new one we wrote”, All Them Witches have honed and perfected their sound, amassing an army of followers in the process. ‘Elk.Blood.Heart’ with its tripped out drum beats and Allan Van Cleave providing twinkling keyboard elements, is a melodic ditty to begin with, before heavily affected guitars come into being and raise the volume levels.
The encore with ‘Blood and Sand/Milk and Endless Waters’, another track with a fantastic guitar riff at the forefront. Its calm opening builds with repetition and then changes to a darker beast, with the vocals of Michael Parks Jr simmering below the overall sound. The crowd are really feeling the music now and jump and dance around unashamedly.
All Them Witches have shown themselves to be in fine form this evening and as the venue empties, with merchandise flying out of the door, fans consider themselves well sated.
All Them Witches Official | Facebook | Twitter | Bandcamp
Lover of all things psych and shoegaze and the mind behind Astral Elevator; constantly seeking new musical experiences in a world full of noise.
