Antietam rises again! Named after the bloodiest day in American history, the rock trio from NYC releases their 14th studio record, The Counting Game, on Dromedary Records, in August 2026, available on all formats.
Guitarist Tara Key, drummer Josh Madell, and bassist Tim Harris have been together in NY since 1990. Tara and Tim rose from the punk rock scene in their native Louisville, Kentucky (after attending the same David Bowie concert before they knew each other).
Antietam have been called quiet [as people] until they come ablaze on stage and are, frankly, a bit sick of always being characterized as The Little Engine That Could. Today we have come to fill in a picture of the last half-century.
In prehistoric times, Robert Christgau called Tara “the best female guitarist this side of the Atlantic” in the Village Voice in 1981, when she and Tim dueled in Louisville’s seminal Babylon Dance Band. Robert Palmer wrote about her in the New York Times: “She is an exceptional player and performer.…On stage, she churns out a ferocious blaze of rapid-fire chording and cannily controlled feedback.” Of Tim, he wrote, “whose bass pulse sometimes seemed to be all that was keeping the Babylon Dance Band from blowing itself to pieces.”
Antietam debuted at CBGB’s in 1984, opening for the Human Switchboard, who had the late, great Bernie Worrell sitting in. After seeing their fierce two-bass alignment (including fellow composer and bassist Wolf Knapp) with Husker Du at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, Gerard Cosloy signed them to Homestead Records and released their first two records in 1985 and 1986. Glenn Kenny, reviewing the eponymous Antietam in the Village Voice, said, “it provides more killer riffs per side than almost any record I’ve heard this year…wonderful music.”
The current trio began in 1990 with Madell still underage and once refused entry to his own gig at SXSW in Austin. The 36 years since encompass not only a dozen albums, but contributions to compilations, singles, collaborations, films, videos—and a whole lot of gigs.
During the years 1990-1995, Antietam released four more full-length records, Tara put out two solo records, and the regrouped Babylon Dance Band issued another.
Through the 90s, their live shows elicited astonishment. In the New York Times, Ann Powers said “[Tara is] the guitar goddess whose expressive playing and electrified stage presence can’t be topped by any local rival, male, female, or otherwise. But what’s also great about this veteran band is the interplay between Ms. Key, her husband, Tim Harris, on bass and Josh Madell on drums.”
Greg Kot, in the Chicago Tribune wrote, “Key is an exceptionally physical player, slinging her instrument around her body and over her head, but her gyrations weren’t just for show; each movement rung a different moan, shriek, or roar from her stack of amplifiers. Her playing was as fluent as it was fierce, building song after song to a transcendent climax.”
The new millennium brought a half-dozen new releases. Antietam’s 2008 triple-vinyl extravaganza, Opus Mixtum, was hailed in SPIN by Jon Young with four stars: “the sprawl of ideas is dazzling: tensely elegant rockers…mesmerizing free-form instrumentals…psychedelic-funk fusion…and good old-fashioned punk.”
In Sun-13, from Liverpool, Simon Kirk puts in perspective Antietam’s later work: “Those synapses continue on from their underrated 2017 full-length Intimations of Immortality. People that get the Antietam remit get it. This is music for the underdog. Breezy outlier indie-rock that blurs the lines of time. From Jefferson Airplane to Patti Smith and Neil Young, Antietam have inadvertently provided a history lesson through songcraft, and it continues on Pitch and Yaw [2024 EP]. Take the opening gambit, “Wake Up, Sleepy T.” This is an ode to alt-rock from generation to generation. From the raw bass grooves of Mike Mills to the warm melodies of Yo La Tengo, Antietam are the glue that holds it all together.”
Leading off his Top 10 with a review of Pitch and Yaw, Greil Marcus captured the span of Antietam’s career: “[Key] singing as if unspoken thoughts always have a tune behind them, you can hear all those forty years passing, nothing resolved. ‘You were on my mind,’ it begins. ‘Flush with borrowed time.’ With the last verse, you wish Key was telling you more: ‘Head for 1965 . . . Tune in WAKY.’ When We Five’s ‘You Were on My Mind’ would have been the first thing you’d hear.”
Over their long career, Antietam has often had listeners discover their almost five-decade-long discography for the first time, with a sense of “Why didn’t I know about this?” In a 2012 review of 1986’s Music from Elba Keith Haddad wrote: “If only I could have been my age now during the mid eighties, I would have not only gone out to see Antietam perform every chance that I could’ve had, but I would have been a self-appointed promotional man for the group, spreading their praise wherever I went until they finally received the acclaim that they truly deserved. Music From Elba may be the main piece of evidence that proves how Antietam has been one of the most interesting, and surely one of the overall best American alternative rock groups ever.”
The 36 years for the Antietam trio also bracket the following:
• Josh’s 21-year run of the legendary Other Music record store in NYC
• Tara’s pair of 90s solo records (in Esquire, Mark Jacobson called Bourbon County a “masterpiece of offhand passion”)
• Tara’s turn with Yo La Tengo in the film I Shot Andy Warhol
• a pair of instrumental collaboration albums between Tara and Rick Rizzo of Eleventh Dream Day (you might hear them on the radio show This American Life)
• a tribute record of covers for the late great Wink O’Bannon, His Majesty’s Request (2021), featuring Antietam as the backing band and the likes of Rizzo, Will Oldham, Todd Brashear, Georgia Hubley, Tara Jane O’Neil, Ira Kaplan, Janet Bean, David Grubbs, Catherine Irwin, James McNew, Doug McCombs, Wolf Knapp, Chip Nold, Carter Sutter, Tari O’Bannon, Jaime Fennelly, Sue Garner, Anna Krippenstapel
The new Antietam work, The Counting Game, brings both the traditional, aka classic Antietam songs featuring Tara’s soaring, melodic guitar solos, and some really really new sounds including Tim and Katie Gentile’s cello/violin duet on the title track; Katie, Mark Howell, and Tara Jane O’Neil bringing the atmosphere on “Winter Watch”; Kentucky banjo master Steve Cooley swinging on “Dorado Gold”; and Josh’s daughter Trixie Madell chiming in on “Spy Vs. Spy.”
Antietam lives on. And in case you’re interested, Antietam was the Civil War battle so devastating that the first version of the Emancipation Proclamation was released the following day. D. Boon of the Minutemen actually knew that. Mad respect and RIP.
Thank you for listening. Peace.