Year Of Metal #084: Bell Witch - Four Phantoms
As I’ve rattled on about repeatedly, when it comes to my metal subgenres, if I say I’m a doom man you’ll believe me. That thick, viscous gear really does it for me, and a lot of the best finds in this project so far - YOB, Converge - have had at least shades of doom in their palette. But there is a line, of sorts, for me. I’ve listened to some LPs by the likes of Earth and even early Boris (who I love) that are so ridiculously slow, so texture focussed, that I find them a bit tough to get into. I can get with it - like the Sunn O))) record, it’s something to be felt, sometimes literally, rather than listened to. But I also feel a bit like the crowd at the Mexico/Portugal game in The Simpsons, urging the musicians to hurry up and do something.
I feared Bell Witch’s 2015 record Four Phantoms would fall on that side of the line. It’s 66 minutes long and comprises four lengthy tracks, two topping the 20 minute mark. It’s even described as funeral doom, which: yeah. Somehow, though, they manage to keep this from being 100% dirge. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of dirge going on here. These songs are slo-o-o-w, and there’s certainly an emphasis on texture and vibe over melody. But there are also ideas aplenty and a remarkable amount of emotion to supplement the waves of crashing drums and ominous, multilayered bass.
According to the credits, the two man Bell Witch line up are playing only bass and percussion (drummer Adrian Guerra would die after this record; the follow up is an 83 minute long, single track tribute to his memory, which sounds like it’ll be overwhelming). You’d be forgiven for thinking there are guitars in there - indeed there may very well be, though I could believe it’s all bass. Whatever Dylan Desmond is playing, he makes it sing like a wounded animal. The lyrics are spare and infrequent - more often than not, the vocals are gasps or roars, the melody driven slowly forward by the instrumentation,
The Four Phantoms title is more than fitting. Each of the quartet of compositions feels truly haunted, Bell Witch conducting a seance of feedback and crashing drums. There’s presumably a lore of sorts to this record that I’m yet to parse, as each song has both a prefix (either “Suffocation” or “Judgement”) and a suffix in parentheses. Mileage may vary on the pretentious, moi? of this. but I’m totally charmed by this; it’s an album dripping in ambition, drama, and portent, and for my money they completely achieve what they set out to do.
The songs are structured immaculately. Opener “Awoken (Breathing Teeth)” starts as something almost ephemeral but finds its shape, as the steady, stately lead line finds its melancholic voice. The bestial grunts on the mic blossom into clean, if buried, vocals; it’s as though the song struggles, rages, and finally finds peace. “Garden (Of Blooming Ash)” then reverses all that good will. It blasts out of the gate in a gnarled, speaker rattling form, then recedes gradually. The malignant energy drips away like it’s losing the will to fight. The coda is close to acapella, with Gregorian monk vibes from the Bell Witch boys.
To the extent that there’s any point having a favourite song on a record structured like this, mine is “Somniloquy (The Distance of Forever)”. This one’s prefix describes it as “A Drowning”, and they’ve got that right. I’ve always been mad on tunes that have this gurgly, watery bass (ever since playing Donkey Kong Land III), and the texture of this piece does such a great job of evoking the concurrent beauty and horror of an immense body of water. When it reaches its peak around nine minutes in, it absolutely soars. This is an album of hard earned catharsis rather than quick triumph, but this major key rise is euphoric. It doesn’t last long, though - on a dime, the melody sours, and we’re back to being tossed around in the ocean of noise.
For obvious reasons this isn’t a record you can just dip into at will, but as an LP, a project, it’s immense stuff. Heavy, beautiful, harrowing, lovingly crafted - it’s great to see artists plough forward with a vision and have it truly pay off.
