Until They Burn Me are longtime collaborators Cody Carlyle and Travis Jordan, whose history together stretches back more than 35 years, with Travis Martin also credited on the EP. They first made music together in The Dry Season and now work between home studios in Ferndale, Washington, and Cincinnati, Ohio, building songs across the distance as songwriters, vocalists, and multi-instrumentalists, though this version of the partnership only officially formed in 2021. Their new six-track EP, Coven, came out on Halloween, and the thread running through it is witchcraft. It is not a single narrative or a traditional concept album, but something that keeps showing up in different forms: a desperate attempt to change the course of love, an omen circling overhead, folklore carried through generations, and forces that may be supernatural, psychological, or somewhere uncomfortably in between. Musically, the EP moves between Americana, dark country, folk, blues, and rock, with each song becoming whatever its story demands.
What an incredible Halloween release this is. The stories are very immersive; I found myself entranced and, dare I say, bewitched by Charlotte’s captivating story. The murder ballad vibes are strong in this EP actually the vocals remind me of Murmaider for some reason, like a less growly version of the delivery and storytelling beats.
Musically, however, my favorite song has to be Blackbird. I love the dissonance and the darkness of the bassline. It’s so heavy it feels like stomping with the shuffle groove and together with the reverbed out guitar, they create an incredible atmosphere for the vocals to really shine. This song might actually be terrifying to listen to if you play it in the woods. It has that ominous quality
The rest of the EP fills out the shadowy world. “Bedbugs” is an instrumental interlude that the press materials describe as all atmosphere and no reassurance, and “Leechcraft,” “Long Meg” and “Sister Midnight” close things out. Coven follows 2024’s Mud Music, 2025’s A Carnival of Reveries and the singles “Dead Water and the Seeds of Despair” and “Addict,” continuing a catalog the band seems increasingly comfortable keeping hard to categorize. The press materials call the result less a straight path than a collection of dark tales gathered around the same fire. It is available wherever music is streamed and sold. The opening track, “Charlotte and the Witch,” is the key track and the natural place to start.
