artist.....: Bell Witch
album.......: Mirror Reaper

genre........: Metal
label........: Profound lore
grabber.....: Eac
encoder....: Lame 3.98r V0
quality...: 245/44,1khz/Joint Stereo
rip date.: 10.10.2017

tracklist:                                          time:

01.As Above                                        48:13
02.So Below                                        35:30

size: 148,19 MB                              total: 83:43

At first pass, the third full-length from
Seattle doom metal duo Bell Witch seems
designed to test its audience’s resolve.
Mirror Reaper consists of a lone track of
the same name, which clocks in at a
gargantuan 84 minutes. Even in a subgenre—in
this case, funeral doom, approximately—that
mammoth length pushes the limits of the
metal songwriting template. Bassist/vocalist
Dylan Desmond and drummer/vocalist Jesse
Shreibman have crafted the group’s single
most challenging listen in years. They’d
probably take that as a compliment.

“It was suggested to us that an 84-minute
song may shrink the audience that will
listen to the song,” Desmond says. “We
understand that, but nothing about this song
was written for someone who can’t listen to
it.

It’s far more than just the album’s epic
runtime, punishing low end, and molasses-
slow riffs that make it a brutal listen.
Founding Bell Witch drummer and vocalist
Adrian Guerra passed away in May 2016,
during the writing process for Mirror
Reaper. Desmond and Shreibman were
devastated, and the metal community’s love
of Guerra meant they were forced to reckon
with his death largely in public. (“I found
it near impossible to mourn with so much
attention,” Desmond says.) When they finally
went back to work on the record—Shreibman’s
first as a co-writer and full member of the
band—their grief had understandably
penetrated the music.

“His death definitely changed the way we
looked at what we were doing at the time,”
Shreibman explains. “We wanted to make sure
to honor him the best we could, all while
making sure we were doing something unique
from the previous recordings.”

By any measure, Mirror Reaper succeeds in
those aims. It’s the most ambitious Bell
Witch album yet, which is saying a lot for a
band whose first two records open with 20-
minute songs. Desmond’s six-string bass work
still sounds like no one else’s in metal.
His solos are as dexterous and soulful as
any lead guitarist’s, and Shreibman’s work
behind the drum kit is a more than adequate
replacement for Guerra’s; his style fits the
band’s sound like a glove. He credits the
time before recording that he spent on the
road playing the old Bell Witch material
with Desmond.

“Adrian had a very distinctive vocal and
drum style that took some time for me to
adjust to when it came to playing the songs
off of Four Phantoms and Longing,” Shreibman
says. “On Mirror Reaper, I tried to keep a
similar percussion style to the previous
recordings, while adding my own style and
signatures to make sure someone could listen
to the old and new material back to back
without it feeling jarring.”

The decision to present Mirror Reaper as a
single piece of music came relatively late
in the process, after the band had already
booked studio time. Desmond and Shreibman
noticed that their new riffs all seemed to
intersect and respond to one another. Once
the song started to take shape, it was
evident that releasing it as one epic-length
track was the only option. “To split the
piece up would do it a disservice,” Desmond
says. “It was obvious to us that it was one
piece. We discussed designating movements to
make the listening process easier, but
decided against that also. We don’t feel
that the music is trying to convey anything
easy.”

Though the band didn’t break the song into
conventional movements as such, it is
divided into two 40-plus minute sections—“As
Above” and “So Below.” At the album’s
midpoint, where these sections collide,
Mirror Reaper has its most cathartic moment:
Adrian Guerra’s voice appears. Guerra had
laid down some vocal tracks during the Four
Phantoms sessions that were never used, and
when he died, Desmond knew they had to be a
part of Mirror Reaper. Guerra’s posthumous
contribution marks the emotional center of a
record with no shortage of emotion, and for
longtime fans of the band, it hits with the
force of a battering ram.

“The riff we used his vocals in was
originally being omitted from the song
because I didn’t like it,” Desmond says.
“When we decided we had to use Adrian’s
vocals, this riff came back into mind.”

Like every riff on the album, the riff that
was exhumed to accompany Guerra’s vocals
both echoes and responds to every other part
of the song. The internal dialogue between
sections that Bell Witch achieves gives
Mirror Reaper a profoundly cyclical feeling,
one that makes you want to put the track on
repeat and let it enfold you for hours on
end.

Mirror Reaper is a difficult work, as
formally ambitious as it is conceptually
heavy. But by its very nature, it becomes
more approachable with repeated listens.
Bell Witch may not have made an album that’s
easy to listen to, but they made one that
rewards its listeners. “One might sense
multiple endings upon first listen, but in
truth they are beginnings,” Shreibman says.
And on each successive spin, this makes more
and more sense.

—Brad Sanders

beware

D E C E P T I O N  :::.  .:::  G E N E S I S
'::::::::' [vedigrrr!aas.]

2004

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