One doesn’t normally come to Bell Witch for the art of surprise, but there’s a wealth of that sentiment all throughout their second collaborative album with Aerial Ruin: Stygian Bough II, out November 14 via Profound Lore. The North West U.S.-based trio of artists are collectively known for crushing, reflective doom metal that feels achingly human, with more than a few whiffs of dark folk infused from Aerial Ruin. This is less folk horror and more the ways that ancient rites and modern philosophy can entwine.
The second release in their Stygian Bough collaborative project feels much more than simply a step up–It sounds stunningly focused, refined, almost downright “traditional” or “efficient”—words rarely uttered around Bell Witch. Their love of long-form and patient rumination still stands firm here, just filtered in a way that only amplifies their shared strengths
Stygian Bough II is stunningly beautiful and eerie. In many ways, it’s the kind of canvas that every listener can obtain distinct meaning from, and that was very much the point.
Bassist Dylan Desmond shares the seeds that led to the project’s sequel:
“We had been discussing the idea of a second volume early on. There was a fair amount of leftover parts from Vol 1 that were cut out. We had been holding off on revisiting them during the album cycle of 9Bell Witch’s) The Clandestine Gate in order to not split our attention too aggressively. Part of our intention was to make this album feel more like its own band and less like a collaboration album. Instead of focusing on sections that would be more Aerial Ruin- or Bell Witch-centric, we tried mashing the styles together and exploring deeper into the outcome. This is a clear distinction from the first album, though very much a linear progression.”
“With the first album,” he adds, “we wanted songs and passages to feel like a collaboration of two different projects that shared similar DNA. With this album, we wanted it to be its own project that had come to maturity. We came into this album with strong compositional outlines, which helped the collective arrangement process. From there, each part was heavily scrutinized to try and get every bit of spirit awakened and with intention. With the first album, we spent more time composing as we went along. I love the outcome of that, but I wanted this album to feel more intentional.”
“There was also an intentional focus on a bit more of traditional song structure/writing as well,” drummer Jesse Shreibman expands. “While the first album was a bit more of a free-flowing concept album, these songs were all heavily critiqued and dissected to make sure they would stand alone. It feels good to hear that you felt that as a listener.”
These songs truly have a propulsion, a momentum, a precision that augments the magical themes and Erik’s haunting vocals. There’s a timeless aspect to this record that revels in the ways that doom can be leveraged, from the funeral to the almost deathly. It feels weird to call a Bell Witch record catchy and/or punchy, but it’s just that sense of pointed purpose that feels distinct from anything in their past. According to the band, that was no mere accident:
“My intention was to achieve something a regular Bell Witch album couldn’t,” Desmond says. “With Erik playing guitar and singing, there is opportunity for a wealth of polyrhythms and melodies that are physically impossible with Bell Witch as a two piece. I wanted to make the full album so rich with melody that it felt viscous across the listener’s soul after it ended. There are a handful of albums I’ve found in my life that continue to move me after decades of listens. I wanted this record to have that effect. Of course, every record can ideally achieve that goal if things align correctly.”
“My intention,” Shreibman says, “was to really explore how poignant and concise we could make these songs. To boil them down to their essence when it came to the orchestration. In Bell Witch there is a never-ending feeling of expansion. While there is a whole lot of expanse in this album, it is also much more precise. Less repetitions. Less builds. I love how we were able to condense the feelings of previous Bell Witch releases and Vol. 1 into a more precise version. It was quite a challenge!”
“The 15 years of Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin collaborations have always started effortlessly for me,” vocalist/guitarist Erik Moggridge adds. “Dylan’s riffs just inspire vocal melodies and lyrics in me, often instantaneously. Stygian Bough allows me to also contribute my own riffs, and it’s fun to write them with Dylan’s two-handed bass style in mind. We really benefitted from the experience of doing Volume I and had many years of slowly working up demos, followed by an intense period of reconstructing the songs as a full band. This really brought all our strong opinions to the forefront. Plus all the touring we did for Volume I not only afforded us to gel as a band but also to perfect our live tones, which transferred well to the studio.”
There’s a magical element to the proceedings that hits differently for each listener as well as within each separate spin. My wife, upon hearing the gorgeous opening track, remarked, “This is so depressing!” I happen to prefer descriptors like “mournfully magnificent” or “haunting,” but that’s the beauty of what this trio has accomplished: We’re all correct because of the nature of the canvas displayed for all to see.
Leveraging anthropologist James Frazer’s The Golden Bough as inspiration, the project crafted a viscous vision of the human experience that is meant to stir up something, whatever the hell that is. According to the Law of Contagious Magic as described in The Golden Bough, contact between two objects creates an inseparable thread between them. It explains such disparate phenomenon as the five-second rule for food on the floor (only half kidding) and how pieces of art serve as a nexus for connection.
As someone who loves finding meaning in art and realizing how often my interpretations differ from the artist, I love the notion that the search for that meaning is more valuable than hitting on a “correct” one. So how does Frazer’s theory play into the record? Desmond shares:
“Something I find exciting and important about Frazer’s points in The Golden Bough are that they are accounts of the way every human’s (past, present, and future) brain works. Across history and continents, we have had extremely different customs and approaches, but those are ultimately all based on a small, shared group of human ancestors and thus all branch off the same tree. In that light, the way we encounter ‘magic’ in contemporary times may be superficially different than that of the common ancestors but ultimately strike the same chords and serve similar means. Our minds and bodies evolved to work in certain ways, and Frazer’s work draws parallels in those to show how similar we actually are across whatever boundaries (time, geography, culture, etc.) are separating us.”
“When Frazer discusses what he defines as ‘magic,’” he continues, “I can’t help but find parallels in the importance our modern society puts on music and art, amongst other things of a similar nature. If time has led us to ‘God is dead, and we are his murders,’ I feel inclined to attempt to understand the things the word has been used to describe. Are these things not specifically what music and artwork look to address in our time? Be it sadness, happiness, salvation, fucking, rage, etc. To varying degrees, these are the things we as humans individually and collectively seek out and experience in somewhat similar ways. Music, or any art work, is a way to express them where other methods of communication fail. Frazer offers a tome of evidence of our human nature to seek out divination as well as the divine. However, ‘divine’ is subjectively interpreted is unimportant; rather, our evident inclination to search for it in whatever the medium be is at the heart of his work.”
“I believe that the universality of the human experience has never been more important than right now,” Shreibman adds, “Whether it be the similarities in the stories and evolutions of our common myths, or the magical underpinnings of the unknown, these are the feelings and thoughts that make us uniquely humans. Music has a way of touching those unspoken commonalities and brings us together. Whether singing, dancing, moshing, or quietly observing together, music is one of our oldest rituals. For many of us, a concert is religious in nature – we are with our people, listening to our music. In a time when AI is taking hold, algorithms are determining the information we ingest, and populations are increasingly disenfranchised from politics, there has never been a better time to examine our similarities as opposed to our differences. Music and art are what have always brought me together with my closest friends; let’s hope that continues for the sake of us all.”
Stygian Bough II is out Friday, and you can preorder it from Profound Lore Records. Follow Bell Witch on Facebook and Instagram and Aerial Ruin on Facebook for future updates.
Photo Credit: Emma Ruth Rundle
