ATW (album)

ATW is the fifth studio album by American psychedelic rock band All Them Witches. The album was released on September 28, 2018, through New West Records.

ATW
Studio album by
All Them Witches
ReleasedSeptember 28, 2018 (2018-09-28)
StudioMANT Studios, Los Angeles
Genre
Length51:52
LabelNew West
ProducerBen McLeod
All Them Witches chronology
Sleeping Through the War
(2017)		 ATW
(2018)		 Nothing as the Ideal
(2020)

Background and production

In a July 2018 interview with DEAD PRESS!, All Them Witches announced that they had begun writing their new album that January, and were aiming for a release around the end of September.[1]

ATW has been classified as a psychedelic rock and blues rock album.[2][3][4] The band self-produced the album at a secluded cabin 20 miles (32 km) outside of their hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. ATW was recorded in five days, with All Them Witches recording each song around five times.[5] Mixing was done at MANT Studios in Los Angeles, California, while mastering took place at Infrasonic Sound in Nashville.[6]

Release and promotion

An official music video for the track "Diamond" was released on September 12, 2018. Directed by the band's drummer Robby Staebler, the video was shot on 16 mm film, and was meant to "present the song in a cinematic and contemplative way."[7]

Reception
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic72/100[8]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
American Songwriter[3]
Exclaim!7/10[9]
PopMatters7/10[4]

ATW was met with mostly positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, ATW has an average score of 72 based on five reviews.[8]

Critics largely contrasted ATW with its predecessor, 2017's Sleeping Through the War, and other All Them Witches releases. Paul Carr of PopMatters said that the band "stripped away the more expansive, excess" of the previous album "but retained the same sense of experimentation".[4] Elijah Teed of Exclaim! said that the stoner rock of earlier albums "is not as easy to spot on ATW, which favours reflectiveness over rambunctious riffs".[9]

Reviews also highlighted the natural progression of All Them Witches' sound on their new album. Hal Horowitz of American Songwriter said that there are "plenty of bands trying to capture this distressing atmosphere of dread, uncertainty and slowly enveloping darkness, but few do it with the class, subtlety and controlled intensity of All Them Witches".[3] James Christopher Monger of AllMusic praised ATW as "a product of pure instinct, and while it may take some patience to absorb, there isn't a single note that feels coerced".[2]

Track listing

All tracks are written by All Them Witches

Standard edition track listing[6]
No.TitleLength
1."Fishbelly 86 Onions"6:02
2."Workhorse"5:44
3."1st vs. 2nd"5:58
4."Half-Tongue"4:35
5."Diamond"6:09
6."Harvest Feast"10:45
7."HJTC"5:48
8."Rob's Dream"6:51
Total length:51:52

Personnel

Information taken from the ATW liner notes.[6]

Charts
Chart performance for ATW
Chart (2016) Peak
position
US Independent Albums (Billboard)[10] 30
US Heatseekers Albums (Billboard)[11] 15

References
  1. Cook, Lottie (July 5, 2018). "INTERVIEW: All Them Witches (10/06/18)". DEAD PRESS!. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  2. Monger, James Christopher. "ATW - All Them Witches". AllMusic. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  3. Horowitz, Hal (September 28, 2018). "All Them Witches: ATW". American Songwriter. Archived from the original on October 3, 2018. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  4. Carr, Paul (October 10, 2018). "All Them Witches Go Back to Basics on 'ATW'". PopMatters. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  5. Alleva, Dan (March 20, 2019). "Having a Ball with All Them Witches". The Aquarian Weekly. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  6. ATW (booklet). All Them Witches. New West Records. 2018. NW6437.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  7. Edwards, Briony (September 12, 2018). "All Them Witches launch eerie video for new single Diamond". Louder Sound. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  8. "ATW by All Them Witches Reviews and Tracks". Metacritic. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  9. Teed, Elijah (September 26, 2021). "All Them Witches ATW". Exclaim!. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  10. "All Them Witches Chart History (Independent Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  11. "All Them Witches Chart History (Heatseekers Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
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