“Some stories aren’t designed to offer comfort, they’re designed to make you wonder what’s out there in the dark.”
With COVEN, Until They Burn Me present a collection of six separate musical stories which explore the realms of folklore, witchcraft, obsession and the rather disturbing ways in which people can interpret the unknown. Released on Halloween (October 31st 2026), the six track EP is not a concept album in the traditional sense with a single overarching narrative. Instead the tracks are linked by the presence of witchcraft in various forms; as a desperate response to unrequited love, as an interpretation of bad omens, as inherited folklore and as a force that just plain can’t be explained. That in itself allows the project to move between different moods and musical directions without ever really losing its overall feel. The base of the record is in Americana, dark country, folk, blues and rock with the odd more unusual influence slipping in when the story requires it. “Charlotte and the Witch” is the opening track and sets the darker tone of the EP straight away. The story is built around unrequited love and the degree of desperation that can be reached when you’re so consumed by your longing that you’ll go to any length to get what you want. It’s a very human premise and that’s what makes it so compelling in the first instance, even though the story itself is moving into the supernatural. The emotional core of the piece isn’t witchcraft per se, it’s the desperation of someone who has simply given up on trying to change their situation in the normal way. That sense of tension between desire and consequence is what gives “Charlotte and the Witch” such a disturbing quality. “Blackbird” then takes the record into a more bluesy territory and the idea of bad omens. The concept is based on a very old human instinct to look at the natural world and wonder if it’s trying to tell us something. The blackbird in this context becomes more than just a bird; it becomes a symbol of the warning that we can’t always be sure we understand. The first two tracks in particular establish an EP which is dark not just because of the supernatural elements but because of the very real human fears, suspicions and desires that underpin them.
One of the more interesting decisions in the track listing is the inclusion of “Bedbugs” as an instrumental piece, situated between the opening stories and the more substantial body of tales that follow. It’s not there to offer any reassurance or to explain what has gone before. The release actually describes it as an atmospheric piece which gives the distinct impression that something quite unpleasant is lurking just out of sight. That’s a significant placement in the overall arc of COVEN. Following the narrative thrust of “Charlotte and the Witch” and the unsettling imagery of “Blackbird”, an instrumental piece is a very effective way of creating space for the listener’s imagination to run wild. It’s not a moment of relief per se, it’s a moment of stillness which actually enhances the unsettling nature of the EP. The second half of the EP then moves on to “Leechcraft”, “Long Meg” and “Sister Midnight” which are three further tracks that continue the thread of witchcraft, folklore and the darker side of the human experience. The release info doesn’t give any detail as to the individual plots or musical arrangements of these three tracks and that’s very much the point. You can see their place in the EP quite clearly, but the actual stories are left for the listener to piece together. What you do get from the overall concept is the sense that the titles are all pieces of a much larger jigsaw, assembled from various different strands of folklore and folk tale. The EP is six stories in total, six stories that are all gathered around the same fire. Each one gets its own space to explore its own subject matter, and the common thread of witchcraft and the supernatural gives the project a very strong sense of identity. The genre blending is also very much in keeping with this. Until They Burn Me don’t seem to be particularly interested in forcing every track into one musical genre. The material is allowed to take the form that its particular story requires. That level of creative freedom is absolutely ideal for a project of this nature, one that is built around folklore and the stories that go with it. The end result as the band present it is a collection that moves through various degrees of darkness, while still retaining a very strong sense of mystery.
Behind Until They Burn Me are Cody Carlyle and Travis Jordan, long time collaborators (dating back over 35 years in fact, having started out together in The Dry Season) who have since gone on to work independently and then again in various combinations, most recently as Until They Burn Me. They work out of home studios in Ferndale, WA and Cincinnati, OH and are all songwriters, vocalists and multi-instrumentalists. Travis Martin is also involved in the creation of COVEN. The approach is to let the song lead the way rather than impose a sound on it and that’s very much the case with this EP which moves from Americana through to dark country, folk, blues, rock and all sorts of other things. The stories are what determine the sound rather than the sound having to fit a certain mould. *COVEN* is the latest in a growing body of work which also includes 2024’s Mud Music, 2025’s A Carnival of Reveries*, the 2026 single “Dead Water and the Seeds of Despair” and the recent August single “Addict”. The project has become more and more comfortable with its refusal to be boxed in. Here that refusal is absolutely key as the six tracks are linked by subject and mood rather than by any requirement to be the same. “The darkest spells are sometimes written in longing, fear and the stories we tell ourselves” is the real heart of the EP. The darkness is there in the form of witchcraft and folklore but beneath that are very much the things we all experience in our own lives: wanting something that is just out of reach, looking for meaning in signs that are ambiguous and wondering whether the things that scare us are actually out there in the world or simply in our own heads. The EP is a very good Halloween release, but it’s the refusal to be anything other than what it is that gives it real appeal. It’s a deliberately unorthodox collection of six stories built around the idea of storytelling and atmosphere and the freedom to let each track take its own shape.
Facebook, X, Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, Bandcamp, website