Bell Witch - Four Phantoms

(Profound Lore, 2015)

Four Phantoms, the second album from Seattle doom duo Bell Witch, is a harrowing exploration of death which builds upon the unique sound established on their haunting debut album, 2012’s Longing. For a two-piece, the band make an earth-shattering racket: Dylan Desmond’s bass provides crushing waves of distortion in tandem with soaring leads which Adrian Guerra dutifully hammers home with brutal, minimalistic precision. However it’s the pair’s vocals and lyrics that lie at the heart of the album’s bleak devastation across these sixty minutes. Flitting between Gregorian chant and desperate screams of despair, the effects of dying in the four manners depicted on the album’s cover – suffocating, burning, drowning and falling – are powerfully expressed and felt. The four songs transition elegantly between moments of sorrowful contemplation and real anguish, providing plenty of dynamic surprises along the way. A true progression for the band in every way imaginable, you are unlikely to hear a truer expression of dread-filled doom than Four Phantoms this year. 

[Originally published in Iron Fist Magazine, Issue 15 August/September 2015]