Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin - Stygian Bough Volume I

By Justin C. You’d be forgiven for thinking Stygian Bough Volume 1 was a split, since it does list both Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin as artists, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. This album features Erik Moggridge, who plays dark, acoustic folk under the name Aerial Ruin, playing with Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman, the duo that makes up Bell Witch.

By Justin C.

Artwork by Adam Burke.

You’d be forgiven for thinking Stygian Bough Volume 1 was a split, since it does list both Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin as artists, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. This album features Erik Moggridge, who plays dark, acoustic folk under the name Aerial Ruin, playing with Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman, the duo that makes up Bell Witch. It’s not a new band, per se--it’s not even a new idea, since Moggridge contributed vocals to Bell Witch’s monstrous album Mirror Reaper. It’s a collaboration. Or, given that the music often drifts into tempos so slow that metronomes can’t measure them, a funereal relay race, with both musical entities passing ideas back and forth.

Maybe the clearest example are the songs “Heaven Torn Low I (the passage)” and “Heaven Torn Low II (the toll).” Part I is mostly Aerial Ruin’s show, featuring Moggridge’s inimical clean vocals and acoustic guitar. But as the song progresses, Bell Witch begins to creep in around the edges, giving Moggridge’s sound the epic swell that’s usually implied in Aerial Ruin’s music, but not actually present.

Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin live. Photos by Nessie Spencer (licence).

As Part I slowly fades, Part II roars to life with the distorted bass and slow-moving melodicism that’s unmistakably Bell Witch. Moggridge continues to provide vocals, but massive, distorted bass notes stretch out and break into howls. The songs clearly take heavy emphasis from Aerial Ruin and Bell Witch, in that order, but it would be a mistake to say that Part I is “Aerial Ruin’s song” and Part II belongs to Bell Witch. One often takes center stage, but the other is always supporting and expanding.

There’s a lot of heart-breaking beauty in this album, and even though it’s just over an hour--which is pretty tame by funeral doom standards--it has the effect of dilating time. I listened to this album during a long drive, the first in a long time, and the light, pandemic-affected traffic on top of the music made me feel as if I were being pulled into some other realm. The album feels endless at times, but not in a tedious or tiring way. Timothy Leary’s old drug-addled adage of “turn on, tune in, and drop out” applies in a weird way, but no LSD is needed here. The artistry itself that takes you away.

Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

By Justin C. If you peruse the metal interwebs, you probably already know the headlines about the new Bell Witch album, Mirror Reaper. It's one song, and it's nearly an hour and a half long. This sprawling piece is, for the most part

By Justin C.

Artwork by Mariusz Lewandowsk.

If you peruse the metal interwebs, you probably already know the headlines about the new Bell Witch album, Mirror Reaper. It's one song, and it's nearly an hour and a half long. This sprawling piece is, for the most part, composed and played by just two members on drums, bass, and occasional organ. In lesser hands, this could devolve into a droning, aimless mess, but Mirror Reaper is as far from that as it could be. It's an enveloping experience that you have to surrender yourself to.

Trying to give you some minute-by-minute breakdown wouldn't give you a great idea of the whole, and it would probably bore you to tears, but there are a couple of things worth nothing. Some vocals are recordings done by former member Adrian Guerra, who passed away during the writing of this album. This is funeral doom, so it's going to lean toward the sad side, but knowing that going into the album, it's hard not to hear that current of loss. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention what happens at about the 53-minute mark. Guest vocalist Erik Moggridge adds pure, aching clean vocals that run throughout the rest of the song. They're understated, almost to the point where you feel like you're eavesdropping on someone singing to themselves in another room, but they're as powerful as any scream.

Bell Witch 2015. Photos © John Mourlas. All rights reserved.

And of course you do get harsh vocals, along with the bass guitar doing double duty as the carrier of the melody and thundering bottom ends. Quiet sections that are almost barely there alternate with mountain-crumbling heaviness. It's an amazing amount of sound and passion to be made by just two people with (primarily) only two instruments. If you were a fan of Four Phantoms, as I was, then you have a general idea of what kind of sounds to expect. What you won’t expect is just how massive this album is, well beyond what the runtime might suggest.

I've seen arguments that Mirror Reaper is just several songs smushed together, but I beg to differ. My primary listenings to this album were in the car during long drives, which was the only way I could immerse myself in this with minimal distraction (save for the occasional motorist trying to kill me, but I live in Massachusetts, after all). It's possible I'm willing to buy this as a single composition because that's what the band told me it is, but I honestly don't think that's it. It feels like it's all of a piece. I'd liken the experience to floating in a sometimes-calm, sometimes-tempestuous body of water, absorbing waves of emotion--loss, defiance, and the swelling joy of hearing music so well done.

Yes, you're going to have to sit with this and listen to it, and at its running length, it's a big ask for music listeners who have a million distractions and other streams to click on. You can't listen to 0:00 to 13:47, then come back to it a few hours later and listen up to 28:57. You're depriving yourself of a large amount of its power by breaking it up. You miss the arc, the repeating melodic motifs, and the sheer expanse of the thing. I'm asking a lot, but I urge you to give it that time and allow yourself to be as moved as I was by this masterpiece.

Friday funeral doom shopping list

By Manny-O-War. In a brief amount of time, say a few short months, it’s become a tradition on Thursdays to open up the lines of communication that social media affords us and play some Desert Island. Each week we select a genre

By Manny-O-War.

Artwork by Lars Simpkins

In a brief amount of time, say a few short months, it’s become a tradition on Thursdays to open up the lines of communication that social media affords us and play some Desert Island. Each week we select a genre, sub-genre or other category of music and each “contestant” (no one really wins or loses) selects five albums that they would bring with them to a desert island. Recently, we tackled the slow, undulating genre of funeral doom. It was met with much joy and participation, odd given the genre’s monicker. It was also a week where many people shared new bands and experiences with each other. And that’s the real motivation behind the desert island game on Thursdays: to allow people to explore categories of music they may not have previously delved into. It’s easy, using a hashtag on Twitter or a post on Facebook, for people to learn about any number of exciting artists held dear by people they respect, don’t know or perhaps are pals with. While not every desert island week leads to music purchases, it’s encouraging when someone takes the initiative to learn about bands and purchase the music directly from the artist.

That’s where Bandcamp comes in. It’s likely that you’ve seen the ##metalbandcampgiftclub hashtag floating around. Maybe you’ve been gifted a record or two, maybe you’ve gifted a record or two or maybe you’ve just seen the hashtag around. Regardless, you can read more about that here if you’re so inclined. Desert Island has given us yet another way to use Bandcamp as a sort of social networking application. It’s an easy way to find, stream and purchase works by artists that you’re interested in checking out. And, this Friday, August 4, 2017, Bandcamp has done something unique: they’ve committed to donate 100% of their profits, for the entire day, to the Transgender Law Center, a nonprofit organization that works tirelessly to change law, policy, and culture as well as defend transgender individuals who may suffer from those who seek to undermine their legitimacy. Bandcamp did something similar previously when it donated all proceeds to the ACLU. These are trying times not only for Americans suffering under a rigid, unwielding and hateful administration but also throughout the world where religion and government are often interchangeable institutions. It’s commendable that Bandcamp is willing to be such a proud supporter of human rights and it’s inspiring to see such a business as a beacon of hope in this oddly commerce-centric culture.

[Max: these albums are simply my shopping list gained from perusing Manny's #desertislandfuneraldoom posts. A few classics, some major releases from recent years that I somehow missed, and most excitingly: a handful of great albums I've never heard about before.]

[Bonus album: I just picked up this excellent mix of drone and funeral doom from Norway's Hjarnidaudi. As this short review from Metal Archives states "Fuzzed out guitars guitars flying everywhere, big walls of slow dirge rhythm, stuff that's melodic and disturbing and generally awesome".]

Bell Witch - Four Phantoms

By Justin C. I should have hated this album the first time I listened to it. It was a Monday morning, I'd slept poorly, and on top of being on my way to work late on a day I needed to get a lot done, I discovered too late that I had a hole in my shirt. I was somewhere between Charlie Brown and the guy in Munch's "The Scream" in terms of mood

By Justin C.

Cover art by Paolo Girardi

I should have hated this album the first time I listened to it. It was a Monday morning, I'd slept poorly, and on top of being on my way to work late on a day I needed to get a lot done, I discovered too late that I had a hole in my shirt. I was somewhere between Charlie Brown and the guy in Munch's "The Scream" in terms of mood, which would normally call for some steering wheel-punching, shouting-at-other-drivers blackened metal, not creeping doom. I needed to get fired up, not droned out, but for whatever reason, I queued up Bell Witch's Four Phantoms. Imagine my surprise when instead of bumming me out, I was rolling on a wave of staggeringly good doom.

Photo by Invisible Hour

I liked Bell Witch's last one, Longing, just fine, but I was in no way prepared for the huge leap forward they'd take on Four Phantoms. All of the usual metal writer cliches fail here. It's ridiculous to call this music "face ripping" or "gut punching" or "toe severing" or anything else of that ilk. I struggled to think of the proper metaphor, but the second track on the album, "Judgement, In Fire: I - Garden (of Blooming Ash)" (the band's punctuation is as dense as their music on this one), finally gave me clarity: The opening percussion explosions in the song are the volcano eruptions, and the bass and vocals are the slowly seeping lava. You can't set a metronome low enough for most of these tempos, but the flow of the music will pull you along regardless.

The songcraft is excellent here, which is saying a lot for an album whose shortest track is over 10 minutes and whose longest track is pushing 23 minutes. That's a lot of space to fill and a lot of places for boredom to creep in, especially with music at such glacial speeds, but I never get bored. The vocals range from understated cleans to deep growls, and the bass, which straddles both rhythm and melody, shows just how melodic you can be on an instrument that usually hides in the shadows. Listen to the opening strains of "Suffocation, a Drowning" or the vocal harmonies about 6 minutes in and tell me you don't get chills. I dare you. The drums are minimalistic, but offer the perfect backbone to this meditative music.

Photo by Invisible Hour

As I've said in other reviews, if you play music this slow and with parts this naked and vulnerable, you have to squeeze every drop of musicality out of every note. You can't hide behind a wall of effects or technicality, and damn, Bell Witch makes every note count. There's not a throwaway moment on this album, and given some of the bloated beasts you find in underground metal these days, what higher praise can you give? Plenty of people have already talked about this album, and I'm shamefully late to the party, but if you blew this off because you usually like something more frenetic, I urge you to give it a try.

Bell Witch - Bell Witch Demo 2011

The end is near! Today is doomsday at Metal Bandcamp! (inspired by this Metal Briefs: The Doom Edition post from Full Metal Attorney)

Bell Witch is a two-member band. Adrian Guerra on drums and vocals, and Dylan Desmond on bass and vocals. They play funeral doom that is both epic and stripped down at the same time. Check out the fantastic (and long!) track "Mayknow", the clean vocals make is sound almost like a doom hymn.