I was fortunate enough to be in the room at Roadburn 2018 when Seattle duo Bell Witch played their 2017 album, Mirror Reaper (review here), in its entirety from front to back for the only time that, to-date as of this post, they’ve done so. They’re soon to embark on a European tour doing the same with visual backing from assembled archival footage by Taylor Bednarz that’s recently been posted as a “visual album” representation for Mirror Reaper‘s equal-parts-massive-and-mournful 83-minute single-song entirety, gorgeous and emotionally harrowing as it is. But the point is that, yeah, I saw that. You should go see that. That’s a thing you want to see. Talking to you, Europe. Make that happen.

Aside from the raw power of Bell Witch‘s performance, the inclusion of vocalist Erik Moggridge (Aerial Ruin) and Bednarz‘s visuals make the Mirror Reaper performance all the more resonant. To call its spacious downward reaches epic is to undersell them with cliché, as not only was the album a personal expression of grief on the part of bassist Dylan Desmond and drummer/vocalist Jesse Shreibman at the loss of one-time drummer Adrian Guerra, but further, it was a pinnacle achievement of what the band’s work up to that point has been leading toward, their 2015 outing, Four Phantoms (review here), widely lauded as a landmark in death-doom. Mirror Reaper is — if it’s nothing else — a bold forward step in that progression, so even without the emotional weight behind it, its sheer impact as a creative work sets slow-churning fire to any scrutiny one might want to place on it.

The tour starts Nov. 28 in Iceland and continues through Dec. 14 in Cork, Ireland. I don’t know what the future will hold for Bell Witch, who also toured earlier this year in the States alongside YOB promoting the album and played the Pool Party of all things at this year’s Psycho Las Vegas (review here), but whether or not they do this kind of thing again, the moment right now feels crucial for it as they’re taking the album out on tour for the first time, and even if they make a habit of it, to say you were there the first time will remain a special claim to make. If you doubt me, reread the first sentence of this post.

The entirety of the Mirror Reaper visual album is below, followed by the tour dates.

Enjoy:

Bell Witch, Mirror Reaper visual album

Ahead of their upcoming European tour where they will perform their album Mirror Reaper in full, BELL WITCH, are streaming the album’s accompanying video. The 83-minute opus was released via Profound Lore to widespread acclaim in 2017 – a repress of the album is now available with new colour variants. Director Taylor Bednarz created a visual accompaniment to the one-track album.

Although the band have played part of Mirror Reaper live at previous shows, the full album has only been performed once in full, at this year’s Roadburn Festival – complete with visuals created by Taylor Bednarz, and vocals from Aerial Ruin’s Erik Moggridge. This full scale performance will be replicated in its entirety at a number of special shows across Europe at the end of the year.

BELL WITCH’s Dylan Desmond comments:
“Taylor Bednarz created a fantastic film to fit Mirror Reaper using exclusively archived footage. During the writing process it became evident to us that the music invited a visual aspect. Bednarz’s interpretation captures much of the emotion we were trying to convey during the song and we are proud of the collaboration with him.”

The accompanying film is a video collage comprised of dozens of archival films. Each of these clips are woven together with the album to build a patient, heavy, and haunting narrative. The film aims to hold the viewer in the state of a lucid dream, feeling trapped as a specter drifting through places of darkness. All shows on the tour will be performed in front of the Mirror Reaper film.

BELL WITCH European Tour Dates:
November 28 – Reykjavik IS – Gaukurinn*
November 30 – London UK – The Dome
December 1 – Leeuwarden NL – Into Darkness Festival*
December 2 – Sint Niklaas BE – Darken The Moon X *
December 3 – Wiesbaden DE – Schlachthof
December 5 – Leipzig DE – UT Connewitz
December 7 – Wroclaw PL – Sala Gotycka
December 8 – Berlin DE – Zukunft
December 9 – Malmo, SE – Plan B*
December 10 – Oslo, NO – BLÅ
December 11 – Gothenburg, SE – Musikens Hus*
December 12 – Copenhagen, DK – Alice
December 13 – Dublin IE – Thomas House*
December 14 – Cork IE – Cyprus Avenue
*denotes show is not seated

Bell Witch on Thee Facebooks

Bell Witch on Twitter

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Profound Lore Records website

Profound Lore Records on Thee Facebooks

Profound Lore Records on Bandcamp

Tags: Bell Witch, Bell Witch Mirror Reaper, Mirror Reaper, Profound Lore Records, Seattle, Washington

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2018 at 10:00 am and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.