There is no album out there, independent of genre, that couldn’t be improved if whoever made it just stepped aside and let Erik Moggridge sing one.  I’ve been saying this about the solo artist more popularly known as Aerial Ruin for a long time, but there’s no band that this axiom is more true for than Bell Witch.  The best song on any Bell Witch album is the one that Erik sings on.  “But Ian,” you might say, “what about Mirror Reaper?”  Well, doesn’t Erik sing on that one?  Checkmate.  Anyway, when the two powerhouses decided to make it official and record as the supergroup known as Stygian Bough back in 2020, they already called the album Volume I, and now here we are, a little over 5 years later and Volume II is upon us.

The great thing about both Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin is that you always know what you’re gonna get from them.  With Bell Witch, it’s intricate, melodic and haunting bass work with thundering, plodding drums and atmosphere for days.  With Aerial Ruin, it’s mournful vocals, poignant lyrics and delicate guitar work.  Put them together and they get on like a house on fire, and that’s exactly what I loved about Volume I when it came out.  The whole album felt like a no-brainer: nothing out of the wheelhouse of each separate piece, but also so perfectly complimentary to each other.  Volume II is more of the same, which I wholeheartedly appreciate.  You get exactly what you pay for, and I wouldn’t really expect or want anything else from the transient trio.  Moggridge’s fuzzed out electric guitar compliments Dylan Desmond’s fuzzed out bass perfectly and the two of them combine forces to really hammer home the melancholic lead lines that typify the funeral doom Bell Witch are the reigning champs of.  Lyrically, Volume II continues the story set out in Volume I, which is itself a continuation of the mythos spun in the song “Rows (of Endless Waves)” off of Bell Witch’s Longing.  Kings and crowns play heavily into the background symbolism, and on Volume II the supergroup focuses on the effects of worship, positive and negative, in all its primal forms.  Couple that with the requisite high-minded philosophy of anthropologist James Frazer and you have an album that is both deep and wide in terms of its lyrical scope.

Volume II might only be four tracks, but as you can imagine, they are long and methodical in their scope and sequence; never let it be said that Bell Witch write short albums.  However, it might be slightly surprising to see, at least from the doom duo, that they are returning to distinct compositions instead of one album-length song.  “This is as close to traditional songwriting as any of us have done together,” says drummer/keyboardist/co-vocalist Jesse Schreibman.  It ends up paying off for them really nicely here.  I love the sense of extended, symphonic grandiosity that comes with your Mirror Reapers and your Clandestine Gates but this style suits the lyrics of the album well.  Each piece focuses on a different aspect of transcendent experiences in human culture, so having different moods and motifs in each track allows the listener to explore those themes internally.  “Waves Become the Sky” should be a familiar sound to anyone who listened to Volume I, or any Bell Witch album for that matter.  It’s a sound that is warm and familiar like a blanket fresh out of the dryer, with Desmond’s unique approach to the bass working in tandem with Moggridge’s deft sense of melody and Schreibman’s drums almost adding a third layer of melody under it all.  If you think you’ve heard it all, though, there are a few pleasant little surprises worked in for those who have followed the players since the beginning.  “King of the Wood” is absolutely a standout track for me because of what it isn’t, and that is loud or plodding.  It’s airy, spacious and relatively subdued over the course of its fifteen minute runtime, despite the fact that it starts off kinda nasty in the best way possible.  It’s a delightful departure that shows that just because a band has a signature sound that doesn’t mean they are out of tricks up their sleeve.  Similarly, closer “The Told and the Leadened” features some of the best and most dynamic drum work from Schreibman yet, further proving that he can do more than just 40 BPM plods (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  Actually, if I had to lodge any complaint about Volume II, it’s that there isn’t enough of him.  No harsh vocals?  Not even a little bit?  What gives, fellas?

Volume II is everything that I hoped it would be as soon as the idea that a second volume was coming.  Neither Bell Witch nor Aerial Ruin know how to do anything less than 110%, and despite the fact that Bell Witch is in the middle of a planned trilogy of albums and Moggridge seemingly never stops collaborating with folks, we have an album that showcases not only what these three musicians are capable of as a musical force, but also the power that their deep friendship lends to their creativity.  I’ll forgive them if the wait is long, but there better be a Volume III where this came from.

— Ian

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Stygian Bough: Volume II will be available November 14 on Profound Lore Records.  For more information on Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin, visit their respective official websites.