heavy-metal-darkness: Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin | Stygian Bough: Vol. 2

Saturday, November 22, 2025

Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin | Stygian Bough: Vol. 2 | Profound Lore Records

Release Date: 14 November 2025

Format: Digital/12" Vinyl/CD/Cassette

Genre: Funeral Doom, Avant Garde Doom, Dark Folk

Country: United States

Bell Witch started in Seattle more than a decade ago with their stripped down, slow moving funeral doom approach that leans heavily on atmosphere, extended passages and emotional weight. Aerial Ruin, the project of Erik Moggridge, has always carried a more intimate dark folk identity with a voice that reaches deep into old world sorrow. When these forces meet, the result is a hybrid that steps away from the typical path of either group, creating something that works on a different wavelength than their individual sound. “Stygian Bough: Vol. 2” arrives as the second chapter of this collaboration and continues expanding this shared territory.

The album examines a world shaped by worship, awe and the strange ways belief can empower or consume. Moggridge speaks openly about these themes and the album mirrors that fascination. The four long tracks build a narrative where human fascination with the unknown twists through myth, legend and personal revelation. It is not simply doom stretched into long forms, it is more like the slow unraveling of wandering thoughts that merge, drift and circle back to the same spot with a slightly different light.

The sound here is heavy in spirit and patient in structure. Bell Witch brings their massive low end and tidal pacing, while Aerial Ruin adds harmonic colors that soften one moment and ghost through the next. The combination moves with a calm confidence. Nothing‘s rushed, everything arrives with measured steps. Recorded once again with Billy Anderson, the album has a natural depth, like a candlelit room where shadows move but you cannot tell if they shift because of the flame or because something unseen crosses behind you.

The collaboration leans strongly into storytelling. Lines about rapture, confusion and shifting scales create a constant sense of searching. Moggridge’s voice often lands like an oracle speaking from a distant shore. Desmond’s bass lifts whole sections into long resonant waves. Shreibman’s drums bring impact, rising suddenly from near silence into rolling surges that guide entire passages forward.

Across the hour the album opens and contracts repeatedly. Calm sections grow into towering climaxes, then collapse into gloom again. The influence of dark folk slips gently into the heavier doom foundation, creating a hypnotic blend that moves between the contemplative and the crushing. There are moments where the trio almost touches on the drifting space of old electronic pioneers, moments where the harmony evokes ancient folk storytelling and moments where funeral doom takes full control. Despite the shifting states, the album stays unified in tone, carrying its thematic weight from beginning to end.

“Stygian Bough: Vol. 2” stands as a thoughtful continuation of this partnership. It draws from myth and anthropology without turning academic, using those ideas as sparks that light the music from within. Denis Forkas’s cover art fits perfectly. The painting looks like something excavated from a lost shrine, mysterious and solemn, exactly the kind of image that pulls you deeper into the album’s world.

This release builds trust and guides the listener through an hour of patient doom, spectral folk and heavy introspection. As a whole it succeeds, even if it stays grounded. It earns its place as a worthy successor to the first volume and suggests that this collaboration still has more corners left to explore.

Score: 7.0