All Them Witches - Dying Surfer Meets His Maker

All Them Witches cut Dying Surfer Meets His Maker in six days in a remote mountainside cabin above Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and the isolation seeps into every groove.

The Nashville band's third studio album, and their first for New West, arrived in 2015 with producer Mikey Allred behind the desk, and this pressing comes with a digital download card. It finds the group stretching their heavy, blues-rooted psych rock into stranger and more spacious shapes, leaning into atmosphere, patience and slow-building tension. The title came from guitarist Ben McLeod, who had used it for a song in his solo project after a real close call while surfing.

Call Me Star eases in quietly, letting Charles Michael Parks Jr.'s weathered voice set a reflective tone before the band gathers its weight. El Centro stretches out into a long, hypnotic groove that rewards anyone willing to sink into it, and Dirt Preachers kicks up the dust with a heavier stomp. Closer Blood and Sand / Milk and Endless Waters drifts out on a tide of reverb and slow-burning guitar.

It sounds best loud and late, ideally with the lights off. For fans of heavy, wandering rock with roots in the blues, few modern records cast a stronger spell.