Review Summary: Happy music.
There are many ways to a man’s heart, though perhaps the most substantial is via the crushing guitars of doom metal. While I may have neglected to remember pizza as #1 on the list, it is only due to lack of sleep, I assure you. Longing is the type of album to begin with a track that is nearly twenty-one minutes in length — they put the “Long” in Longing. With sun crushing doom metal Bell Witch play to the speed of a very intimidating elder as they slowly, scarily, walk down a hallway. Also, an ancient spirit haunting the building gives ghastly wails, thus the growls are quite immersive and shiver inducing, and the atmosphere is chilling. There is also the drummer, Mr. Cymbal Crasher himself. The drummer dishes out basic doom metal beats as though it’s his only recipe — take that how you will, and don’t expect a Buddy Rich drum solo.
Let’s talk about the first track — actually never mind that, the first paragraph describes it well. The second track is much different with more prominent, haunting singing, yet the carrot crunch riffs and man-beast both remain to whip my ass back and forth. The singing could be better, but I don’t expect Bieber to show up on a doom metal track, as mouth watering as that would be. The third track highlights a tendency that makes Bell Witch stand out. Guitars within are deeply droning, they bear motifs from shoegaze to post-rock with their twinkly rifflies and background guitar ambience but the doom goeth hard. I wouldn’t call them Sigur Ros, but they are quite good at bringing cute, thoughtful melodies to their temple stabbing riffs. On top of that, there are more tracks — nifty! The fourth track is quite good, adding spacious guitar work combined with movie quotes. Those simple, moody strums are both chill and unsettling. The fifth track brings back everything the album is about, and then the sixth and final track goes ham on the moody strums.
End of album — but was it impactful? Should you care?
It’s a simple doom metal album, instrumentally at least, but good. Whatever their lyrics are is hard to tell, but they sound like they mean them. The growls crunch like lightning from the sky, the riffs slap, and overall I feel the weight of the band. In the end it did matter, every slap of drum, and every ghostly guitar tone felt like a walk through sleepy hollow. What a walk it was, it is quite an impactful album. It may seem like they’re meandering at times considering their ambience takes over quite often, and lengthy instrumental segments reign. However, with a smidgen of patience and less ADHD you too can walk away having heard an album that doomed as hard as it atmosphered.
