Los Angeles-based bad girl trio L.A. Witch released a new single today, “Kill My Baby Tonight,” off their forthcoming album, to be released later this year. They’re also embarking on a semi National tour, aptly named the Kill My Baby Tour 2015. I am all for a “kill my baby” reference. It reminds me of Bonnie and Clyde gone bad, love overdoses in the Badlands, and rounds of Russian roulette over tears and bottles of bourbon.

Which is kind of what they sound like.

L.A. Witch, consisting of Sade Sanchez on vox/guitar, Irita Pai on bass, and Ellie English on drums, got off to a tricky start. Their original drummer up and left, but that didn’t dissuade them. Once English enrolled in their cool school, the band played any show that would have them (including a show at What Youth last summer that still haunts our halls in the best way), fine-tuning their now undeniable aesthetic, complete with leather jackets and reverb-drenched chords.

Their sound is a combination of culty surf in the vein of Link Wray, with Sanchez’s riffs slow and steady until that breakdown knocks you off your chair, mixed with drugged-out cowboy twangs and that speckle of rock and roll to keep it all fuzzy and lo-fi.  And “Kill My Baby Tonight” is right on that track, which makes me real thirsty for that debut LP – the band released a mini three-track EP last March.

These chicks know how to play music, especially English, who is one of the best female drummers I’ve heard or seen. She plays loud and fast and hard, harder than you’d think by looking at her sweet face. And Pai, with her miniskirt stance slapping her bass, keeps the rhythm section cinched like a gold chain. Sanchez’ vocals, sultry and powerful and gently gnarled like an emphysema patient, deliver the lyrics without pretense. In “Kill My Baby Tonight,” she pleads, “What am I to do / if I can’t be with you.” And fuck do I feel her.

L.A. Witch is on their way to Austin to play Psyche Fest, and then off to the rest of the country. On their last tour, rumor has it that Sanchez saw the inside of a jail cell. Did I mention these babes are badasses? —Maya Eslami