The Heathen Apostles
We are very excited to host the Heathan Apostles on their European Tour.
It’s a good time to be a fan of the near-impossible to categorize Gothic Americana supergroup, The Heathen Apostles. The L.A. quartet’s been in circulation since 2013, and has quite the pedigree:
- Vocalist Mather Louth, late of Radio Noir
- Guitarist (and multi-instrumentalist) Chopper Franklin, formerly of The Cramps, and a handful of other punk bands (notably the Mau-Maus)
- Upright bassist Thomas Lorioux, of The Kings of Nuthin’
- Classical and jazz violinist Luis Mascaro
They’ve released six albums since their formation. The In Between is their seventh, releasing on July 5 of this year. Not the only drop from the members this year, though — Franklin released the fabulous Spaghetti Western Dub Vol. 1 in January — fusing deep dub reggae with the arid Ennio Morricone vibes of the spaghetti western genre.
The band’s collective talents are up front on The In Between, seamlessly fusing jazz, reggae-by-way-of-Long Beach syncopation, thick double bass backbeats, masterful fiddle playing by Mascaro, and absolutely pugnacious, brassy vocals from Louth.
It’s an album that’s hard to categorize, but all the disparate elements fuse so well to form their signature sound that’s only becoming more refined with each album.
If Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath were rebooted into a slasher throwback film by Rob Zombie, you’d have an idea of how the music feels, but the soul of the sound is closer to the heart of the murder ballad outlaw country of Johnny Cash and Lefty Frizzell. The interplay between the Southern Gothic Dust Bowl imagery and a throwback as much to bluegrass and the Bakersfield sound (well, if Hunter S. Thompson had played it), is tremendous. It’s one of the reasons I came to love this band myself.
