Following their incredible, sprawling 2017 album Sleeping Through War, Nashville psych-rock experimentalists All Them Witches have announced their fifth studio album ATW, out September 28th on New West Records. Today they share the fuzzed out, organ drenched, album opener "FISHBELLY 86 ONIONS" which you can stream here.

Preorder the album here.

Additionally the band has announced a US headlining tour, kicking off at the Desert Daze Music Festival in Perris, CA on October 12-14 where they will play alongside the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Tame Impala, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and more. Full US dates below. Tickets go on-sale at 10am EST Friday.

TOUR DATES

10/12/2018 - 10/14/2018: Perris CA @ Desert Daze Festival

10/14/2018: Sacramento, CA @ Monster Energy Aftershock

10/31/2018: Birmingham, AL @ Saturn

11/01/2018: New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks

11/02/2018: Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall: Upstairs

11/03/2018: Austin, TX @ Antone's

11/04/2018: Dallas, TX @ Club Dada

11/07/2018: Phoenix, AZ @ The Rebel Lounge

11/08/2018: Las Vegas, NV @ Beauty Bar

11/09/2018: Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex

11/10/2018: San Diego, CA @ The Casbah

11/13/2018: San Francisco, CA @ The Independent

11/15/2018: Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom

11/16/2018: Seattle, WA @ Freakout Festival

11/17/2018: Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre

11/19/2018: Boise, ID @ Neurolux

11/20/2018: Salt Lake City, UT @ The State Room

11/21/2018: Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater

11/23/2018: Kansas City, MO @ The Riot Room

11/24/2018: St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill Duck Room

By most fifth LPs, the band's sound is pretty set. Parameters established. Refinement dissipated. You get a to-formula execution of what's worked in the past. Fair enough. All Them Witches go a harder route.

In 2017, the Nashville four-piece offered what might've otherwise become their own template in their fourth album (second for New West), Sleeping Through the War. It brought a larger production value thanks to oversight from producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Shooter Jennings, etc.), found them using choral vocals, expanded arrangements, bigger sounds than anything they'd done before.

They could've easily fallen into a pattern of watered-down clones of that record. Easily.

So naturally in a year they've thrown it all to the Appalachian wind, turned the process completely on its head and gone the other way: recording in a cabin in Kingston Springs, about 20 miles outside of Nashville on I-40, with guitarist Ben McLeod at the helm. Self-produced. 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 recorded and another redefinition of who they are as a band. Introducing keyboardist/percussionist Jonathan Draper to the fold with McLeod, bassist/vocalist Charles Michael Parks, Jr., and drummer/graphic artist Robby Staebler, All Them Witches' ATW isn't self-titled by mistake.

It's the band confirming and continuing to develop their approach, in the devil's boogie of "Fishbelly 86 Onions," the organ-laced groove and masterful flow of "Half-Tongue," the build of "HJTC" and the fluid jam in closer "Rob's Dream." You can hear it in the mellow patience of that last track, never lost but always wandering, and in "1st vs. 2nd," where they turn from a frenetic shake to some purposefully metal-ish riffing while still holding onto gut-tightening tension.

And what do they do with that? Some overblown payoff? Hell no. They cut it short, drift into noise and then dig into "Half-Tongue" ahead of the moodier "Diamond," which, true to its name, seems to turn any light that touches it into a prism. This is a band who delight in the exploration, in finding new rules to break, and in continually learning new ways to do so.

ATW is a reaction to being a "bigger" act. To playing bigger shows, bigger tours, etc. From the sustained consonants in Parks' vocals, to the sleek basslines that play off the can't-sit-still-won't-sit-still swing in Staebler's drums, to McLeod's commanding slide in "Workhorse" and drifting melancholy at the outset of "Harvest Feast," ATW is their laying claim to the essential facets of their identity.

And most crucial to that identity is its shifting nature. All Them Witches didn't get to this point by resting on laurels, and if anything, 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 it captures All Them Witches in this moment. Is ATW who they'll be tomorrow? Who the hell knows? Check back in and we'll find out together. That's the whole idea.

All Them Witches:

Robby Staebler - drums, percussion, loops

Charles Michael Parks Jr - vocals, bass, loops

Ben McLeod - guitars

Jonathan Draper - keys, percussion

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