Bell Witch's MIRROR REAPER: An Album Review

Let’s get technicalities out of the way. Mirror Reaper marks the third full-length album from Seattle doom metal duo Bell Witch. Released October 20 from Profound Lore Records, Bell Witch delivers the entire 83 minutes of Mirror Reaper’s duration through a single track. (For fans of Sleep, that’s 20 minutes longer and one track less than 2003’s Dopesmoker - not that anyone’s suggesting a measuring contest here. I’m just offering context. Not to mention, veteran Sleep and Neurosis producer Billy Andersen captains the Mirror Reaper helm, putting this album into the realm of modern classics even at its inception.) The technicalities here are worth getting aside as they comprise the least interesting details about this record.

Mirror Reaper’s backstory as eulogy is key. Recorded in response to the passing of founding member and drummer Adrian Guerra, Mirror Reaper works as a single track split over two distinct movements: the agonized “As Above” and the resurgent “So Below”. Bell Witch’s current line-up, Dylan Desmond (bass, vocals) and Jesse Shreibman (drums, organ, vocals), confessed unique intentions for Mirror Reaper on their Bandcamp page: “In love and respect to [Guerra’s] memory, we reserved an important yet brief section in the song for him that features unused vocal tracks from our last album. This specific movement serves as a conceptual turn in the piece, or point of reflection.” From a band who traditionally focuses their narratives on ghosts - look to 2015’s beautifully epic Four Phantoms - in order to explore perplexing and uncomfortable boundary lines between life and death, Guerra’s posthumous vocals offer a turn - right at the 51 minute mark - that feel far more tangible than merely conceptual.

Those who commit to Mirror Reaper will find its uniqueness not bound to format. After repeated listens, Mirror Reaper, for me, becomes more compelling, more complex, even beautiful. Spending time here is not difficult. The album holds and demands attention, moving in places both unexpected but grossly familiar to anyone who’s experienced grief. Bell Witch musically recalls a painful truth: grief takes time. It requires process. It brings our entire spirit to a grinding halt and then kneads us into something new that we never imagined. Perhaps something stronger. Perhaps enlightened. We can’t know until we endure and emerge. In that context, Mirror Reaper - this 83 minute doom symphony - offers a snapshot of such endurance. Nothing on this record is rushed. No one is hurried. Music builds and falls. Vocals rise and fade. Single notes simmer, drifting slowly into larger, darker expanses of chasm deep echoes, and this beyond our awareness. We find ourselves suddenly in new territory - “a new shore” as Guerra sings. Meanwhile, cymbals crash like broken water while bass lines swim twisted through currents of, initially, anger and despair, until eventually giving way - prompted by hymn-like layered organ swells - to something lighter, something akin to peace, perhaps hope. How ironic that Mirror Reaper, a record about an actual death, ends at the opposite of doom.

Grief’s full portrait is here. A sun setting. A darkness ruling. But then a sun reappearing. Bell Witch reminds listeners - by closing and pulling back these curtains - that, sure, we can keep our eyes closed, but the sun will reappear. In that sense, Mirror Reaper is an 83 minute exercise in emerging.