Reviewing a new release from a band you totally love should not be allowed. In any other industry this kind of behaviour would be seen as a fatal conflict of interests. You love the band and their release is great – suddenly the record is inflated to stratospheric degrees of hyperbolic praise. You love the band and their release is lacklustre – suddenly the record is nothing but an ugly effigy of everything you loved about them, and your writing shows it. Sure, there are plenty of reviewers who aren’t swayed by such petty sentiments, but I am, and I fucking love Bell Witch more than most of my relatives.

BELL WITCH are an odd band, which is good as it keeps away the kind of doom fans who don’t deserve to listen to them. They are now composed of Jesse Shreibman (drums/vocals) and Dylan Desmond (bass/vocals), who both previously performed live with the inimitably brilliant Wrekmeister Harmonies. The latter also previously played bass for Samothrace, which essentially makes the quality of artistry possible here truly exciting.

Shreibman is a new addition to the band for this release following the departure and tragic passing of former drummer, Adrian Guerra, in 2016. It feels uncomfortable writing on such a topic, knowing how important it is both to the writing process and context of the album, while acknowledging the constant reminders the band will be experiencing in the inevitable furore surrounding the release (this review included).

Truly, however, the lingering memory of loss must be understood to comprehend ‘Mirror Reaper’ (2017 - Profound Lore Records) in its fullest. This is given the most evident fruition at the midpoint of the album, where some of Guerra’s unused vocal outtakes from the Four Phantoms sessions were inserted. Far from being the kind of morose novelty that listening to Dawn of the Black Hearts can feel like today, the inclusion of Guerra’s vocals act as a conceptual shift that both progresses and solidifies the theme Mirror Reaper so deftly crafts. And what a theme it crafts over its punishing 83 minute length, sounding like a towering edifice akin to the mirror on the front artwork. Having all the album material as one song is both brave and ambitious, possessing the kind of atmospheric unity to execute such a move in a way that makes listeners question how else it could ever be presented.

On top of this, Bell Witch simply do not need to compromise to make their material more palatable. This is not music for people who demand neat breaks, track titles, a pause to gather ones thoughts and offer trite applause. This is music to get deeply and profoundly lost in, to lose all understanding of time and live in one single divine and tormented moment.

Bell Witch capture a feeling and craft every nuance of every sound around it. This means that regardless of whether there is space or density, silence or chaos, hope or despair, each component will be in service to the album’s overriding identity. This is the opposite of rock star solipsism; it is the obsessive pursuit of the intangible, the sacrifice of the self to create something greater – a conceptual purity formed only of sound. There is no ‘I’ in such a thing, and it is all the more beautiful for it.

This is seen in Schreibman’s drumming, where his performance fits so well that it lays to rest any questions about his suitability. His style is so congruent that in any other band you may question whether he was simply aping Guerra’s blueprint laid in Longing and Four Phantoms. In reality, however, his skills are not so much a replacement or imitation of Guerra’s as they are a continuation of keeping Bell Witch the sad wounded beast it is.

Enough reviewers will note the use of a Hammond organ, the added vocal passages, the clever use of a six-string bass. What is important for me, however, is the thickness created in Mirror Reaper. It is no ‘fat tone’ or Orange turned up to 11, it is the suffocating misery in which each Bell Witch album unceremoniously emerges and marches through with ritualistic yet pained dignity. The album ends on the kind of note that suggests a further passage to come, a trailing sentence left uncompleted. This is not the sound of resolution, it is catharsis in futility. Enjoy.

Jacob Mazlum is the frontman and guitarist for Sheffield doom-sludge band Kurokuma. This is his first contribution to Doomed & Stoned.

PALLBEARER have always been a very special band to me, one that I have always commended for not only being one of the few able to bridge the gap between traditional and modern doom (perfecting Warning’s formula), but also for their skill at crafting songs with a true sense of grandeur. Writing a great riff is one thing, but writing a song that makes you feel profoundly humbled is in a different league entirely and the Olympus of bands being consistently able to do so is very small in my opinion. At this point, there should be no misunderstanding as to where I stand regarding Pallbearer. The band has always been a trusted companion of mine whilst exploring doom and I have been listening to them on at least a weekly basis ever since my initial discovery. ‘Heartless’ (2017 - Profound Lore Records) was without a doubt my most anticipated record of this year, even more than the much rumored about Sleep record. In short: I am a fan. Big time.

So, how does Heartless fare?

To get the obvious things out of the way, it’s a vastly different record in comparison to their previous Profound Lore releases, ‘Foundations of Burden’ (2014) and 'Sorrow and Extinction’ (2012). It was interesting to see some discourses about whether Heartless is a progressive record or not, owing certainly to it being much more adventurous than on the preceding monolithic slabs of doom. Among the most striking changes on Heartless is a heavier reliance on vocals, evident on album opener, “I Saw The End,” which liberally employs frontman Brett Campbell’s mournful wail and even throws in some vocal harmonies and canons toward the end, acting as a climax before it erupts into an explosion of guitar leads, bringing the song to an end.

“Thorns” follows much of the same recipe, kicking in the door with the most righteous of chug-riffs and adding in yet another gorgeous pinched guitar lead in that will have you clench your fist and go, “Mmm, so fucking good!” It’s these moments in which Heartless thrives, and the album has them in spades. The grand culmination of these moments is the album centerpiece, “Dancing in Madness,” with its impressive dramaturgic arc. The almost Gilmour-esque solo at the beginning shifts into a big, celebratory riff, then slowly picking up the pace, getting gradually bleaker, into the middle section accentuated by short, heavy-hitting chugs and shouted vocals (a first for the band). Being unable to bear its own weight, “Dancing in Madness” gives way to a short acoustic section, before concluding in a wash of graceful intertwining soli by Devin Holt and Campbell, reinforced by his heartfelt lamentations.

Title track “Heartless” seemingly conducts business as usual, down to Mark Lierly’s ever prominent cymbal work, until unexpectedly vanishing into a quasi-ambient section with distant whispering, then bringing back the main riff with metric tons of heft. Things come to a halt (to recollect our thoughts and catch a breath) before the band propels itself into one of the record’s pinnacle moments of triumph: Campbell knocking it out of the ballpark with his very best harmonies (fist-clench worthy, again).

The exceptionally bleak “Cruel Road” picks up where the middle section of “Dancing in Madness” left off, reeking of despair. The later proclamation of “until my body collapses” is one of the most intense passages of the record, once again making use of shouted vocals at the perfect time. Fans of Devoid of Redemption will find much to appreciate here.

“Lie of Survival” with its beautifully strummed outro and even more so the album closer, “A Plea for Understanding,” channel Pallbearer’s soft-spoken side, the latter being the other major highlight, besides “Dancing in Madness.” Bassist and backing vocalist Joseph D. Rowland and his deeper voice take up a more prominent role here, lending some contrast to Campbell’s emotional outcries. Together, they express a deep sense of fragility and vulnerability. It’s a brilliant way to send off Heartless on an emotional high-note, very much akin to YOB’s “Marrow” off 'Clearing the Path to Ascend’ (2014 - Neurot Recordings), and it lays the listener to a very graceful rest. Pallbearer delivers on the promise of their name.

Now, as to why I refer to Heartless as “The Great Divider”: it’s going to be a maker or a breaker for many people. Though by no means short on great moments and riffs, Heartless is just missing those big “money riffs” as I like to call them that made songs like “Devoid of Redemption,” “The Legend,” “Worlds Apart,” and “The Ghost I Used To Be” into the mainstays they are. It’s somewhat of a departure from the proud, monolithic doom anthems of old towards shorter, less riff-driven and more in-the-moment songs. However, most bands can only hope to write one such riff in their whole career, so the ratio is still very much in favor of Pallbearer.

The cleaner production and the heavier emphasis on vocals will not appeal to everybody (there is no secret to Campbell’s singing being a somewhat polarizing subject matter, but you cannot accuse him of not having poured in a lot of effort to become a better singer). That said, I do plea for people to give Heartless the time it needs. I did. For one of my first listening sessions, I hiked to a high plateau near my house. Gazing upon the scenery that surrounded me with Heartless playing in the background was a deeply cathartic experience, putting me at a profound peace. I felt fully rewarded for each and every step I took to get to the top. They made themselves a name for being able to evoke the absolute maximum of emotion out of a simple strum, a single line, a sole beat, and nothing has changed in that regard. In my mind, a band of such emotional impact comes only once every decade (make the calculation, Neurosis, YOB, Pallbearer, it’s that Olympus again), and for that alone, not even taking their boldness to create such a radically different record into account Pallbearer deserves all the recognition they can get.

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