Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper (2017)

An hour and twenty three minutes is a significant period of time. I could clean my whole house or prepare and cook a three course meal in that time. Thankfully Bell Witch obviously have a cleaner and/or a chef as they decided to write one track during the time it would take most of us to commute to work. Fans of Bell Witch will already know their sound to be unusual in the sense that there's no guitar and they produced one of 2015's best releases when they dropped "Four Phantoms" to the doom masses.

Far from being an inhibitor, the lack of any guitar simply gives the Bell Witch duo opportunity to make the very best out of the bass and percussion, feeding them with atmospherics from varying sources and types to great effect. I won't lie, this album is an acquired taste. The layers going on here are oppressive both in terms of weight and the amount of patience (and time) required to simply sit down and truly appreciate them.

This is not your standard Funeral Doom/drone album. In fact it is so much more than an album, something audible yet tangible at the same time to fingertips of anyone willing to lose nearly 90 mins of their day listening to an album consisting of just one track. The bass guitar for Bell Witch acts as so much more than a stringed instrument. Sure, the harrowing bottom end that dominates the majority of the track is an ocean of a million regrets churning its tide, smashing roll waves against roll waves, eroding cliff faces and laying ships to wreck. But at the same time the bass sings to you, a song of sorrow and fathomless anguish like a Siren-esque accompaniment to the actual vocals themselves. The delivery of the vocals is brilliant in keeping with the atmosphere of the record as they breathe in and out, formulating whispers, growls and clean, ritualistic verses whilst all the while the drums build their own crescendos of crashing cymbals and subtle rolls that fade and grow back like the embers of some undying fire.  

There's textures here too, not always obvious but certainly the variety on display takes the listener on a journey through every passage of crushing doom on and into post (post-doom's a thing right?) and ambient structures of peace and tranquillity yet still the hazy and murky dirge retains the atmosphere all through out.

I am a sucker for any record that matches the artwork that adorns it's cover. The artwork on "Mirror Reaper" is more than matched by the music behind it, I could stare at the artwork for the whole duration of the record and live out it's ethereal and menacing story to the full whilst doing so.