Bell Witch

Bell Witch

Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate

Profound Lore

Pacific Northwestern doom metal monolith Bell Witch is releasing their new album Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate. For this new album, bassist / vocalist Dylan Desmond and drummer / vocalist Jesse Shreibman exploded Bell Witch’s bounds. Like 2017’s lauded Mirror Reaper, The Clandestine Gate is a single 83-minute track—a composition that pulses and breathes on a filmic timeframe. It constitutes the first chapter in a planned triptych of longform albums, collectively called Future’s Shadow. While traces of organ and synthesizer hovered over Mirror Reaper and Bell Witch’s 2020 collaboration with Aerial Ruin, Stygian Bough Volume 1, The Clandestine Gate drew those instruments closer to the center of its compositions. The band reunited with their longtime producer Billy Anderson as they began negotiating these new compositional weights. On this latest, the band’s twinned voices build off of the chantlike textures of previous records while steering toward more developed melodic lines, structured harmonies, and rhythmic death metal growls. The immense gravity of a work like The Clandestine Gate, which features exclusive stunning cover art by Jordi Diaz Alama, allows ideas to simmer in a way that feels profoundly and somatically intuitive—not just a philosophical exercise, but an embodied truth. By slowing down both their creative process and the tempo of the music itself, Bell Witch digs even deeper into their long standing focus: the way life spills on inside its minuscule container, both eternal and fleeting, a chord that echoes without resolution.

Bell Witch

Longing

Flenser

***BACK IN STOCK ON LP!!! Upon its release in 2017, Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper cemented the Seattle duo’s status as one of doom metal’s most formidable acts. Its single, monolithic track also served as a tribute to the band’s former drummer Adrian Guerra, who tragically passed away the year before. Five years earlier, on the back of a highly praised demo, the band released their debut album, Longing. Featuring the original line-up of Dylan Desmond and Adrian Guerra (RIP), the album was recorded by Brandon Fitzsimons (Wormwood, Samothrace). It is a time-stretching journey through darkness, pain, and suffering, and doomed minimalism that is now considered a classic of the genre. Originally released on CD by Profound Lore in 2012 and on vinyl by The Flenser, the vinyl edition has been out of print for several years until now. The Flenser is proud to offer a new pressing of this timeless masterpiece.  Longing is packaged in a thick, old-style case-wrapped gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves.

Bell Witch

Demo 2011

Flenser

***AVAILABLE AGAIN!!!  Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper is one of the best metal albums of 2017. A single monolithic track, it pays tribute to the band’s former drummer Adrian Guerra, who tragically passed away in 2016. The band initially made their presence known in the US doom scene with a well-received demo in 2011. At thirty-seven minutes, this recording is a massive statement of purpose which far-eclipsed the “demo” status implied by its name. It was recorded by Brandon Fitzsimons (Wormwood), the same engineer behind the band’s first effort, Longing. Demo 2011 showcases Bell Witch’s heavy-yet-minimalist sound now lauded as timeless, relevant and undeniably sorrowful. The Flenser is proud to unleash this new pressing of a classic moment in contemporary US doom with artwork by the band’s own Adrian Guerra (RIP).  “Bell Witch turns funeral doom and its moribund focus into a beautiful hymn.” —Pitchfork   “Bell Witch have an uncanny ability to make their metal feel ancient, spiritual, even liturgical.” —Tiny Mix Tapes

Bell Witch

Mirror Reaper

Profound Lore

***BACK IN STOCK ON LIMITED LAVENDER + GRAPHITE ECO MIX COMBO!!! Note new price. Received an 8.0 rating from Pitchfork. With their third full-length album Mirror Reaper, Seattle doom metal duo Bell Witch have created their most enormous and all-encompassing work to date.The band takes their blueprint for minimalistic, mournful, yet massive sound and expands it to a new level, doing the unthinkable in the genre: a continuous 83-minute piece unfolding as a single time-stretching track. Once again engineered and mixed by veteran producer Billy Anderson (who claims this as one of the milestones in his entire producing career) the duo of Dylan Desmond (bass, vocals) and Jesse Shreibman (drums, vocals, organ) push the sound even further beyond their landmark 2015 album, the genre-defining Four Phantoms. With organ adding a new layer, the album also sees honorary member and guest vocalist Erik Moogridge (Aerial Ruin) return once again offering an even more prominent presence with his vocals. On the themes surrounding the concept and lyrics, the band states: “Our original idea for this record was to write a two-song album titled As Above / So Below. These two songs would have been split into seven movements to correlate with the seven Hermetic principals. The process took a life of its own and upon completion we have one song spanning 83 minutes. It is titled in reference to the axiom ‘As Above So Below’. During the writing process we were devastated by the loss of our dear...

Bell Witch

Four Phantoms

Profound Lore

BACK IN STOCK on blue galaxy or yellow galaxy vinyl!!!!  Received an 8.2 rating from Pitchfork.  A doom metal triumph for the ages, now available on vinyl!  Seattle funeral / death doom act Bell Witch made a massive impact with their debut Longing, hailed as one of 2012’s finest doom metal albums. In the aftermath of its release, the duo (bass, drums and vocals) toured extensively throughout North America and Europe, generating even more notoriety within the scene. Their much-anticipated new full-length Four Phantoms, recorded and engineered by the legendary and respected Billy Anderson (Agalloch, Pallbearer, Leviathan, Neurosis, Melvins), is Bell Witch’s most crushing work yet. The band takes their sound further into the realms of soul-destroying heaviness, with intricate song structures that display finely honed compositional skills. Note LP price increase. Limited colored vinyl edition available to mail-order customers only, while supplies last!

Bell Witch

Longing

Profound Lore

Seattle’s Bell Witch is a doom metal duo comprised of bassist / vocalist Dylan Desmond (also a member of Samothrace) and drummer / vocalist Adrian Guerra. With only the bare minimum at their disposal, the pair crafts some of the darkest, heaviest and most dismal time-stretching doom in recent memory, and their sole release up to this point, a 2011 self-titled demo, has already garnered significant recognition from the underground scene. With a more sinister and enveloping sound, Bell Witch’s debut full-length Longing is a marathon-like exercise in extreme doom. Testing the thresholds of listeners who become engrossed in its overwhelming sonic experience, it’s a powerful statement from one of the most promising acts the American scene has to offer. Longing features guest vocals from Aerial Ruin’s Erik Moggridge on the track “Rows (of Endless Waves).” Catch the band on tour in support of the album’s release.