Who Put Bella In The Witch Elm
Photo Cred 📷 : @moongazer.studios
If there's one thing I love as much as a long song title, it's definitely a long band name. A band’s identity is sometimes the first piece of story that you receive, even before the music. Who Put Bella in the Witch Elms name led me down a very deep rabbit hole about a still unresolved murder and the mystery graffiti that inspired the band’s moniker and I must say the lore compliments the sound very well here, especially on their latest 3 song EP “...In The Place Where I Tried To End It All”.
Opening track “Dagger” is driving and potent with throaty shrieks and screams sprinting alongside distorted and sweeping guitar riffs, basslines like shifting tectonic plates with discordant and syncopated drumming all fused into a piercing sonic spear crescendoing into a massive chorus near the middle section just before being carried out on an almost-danceable-cascade of melodic strings and percussions. “The Tree” is no Raein reference but a wistful yet brooding interlude much in the way a stormfront stares you down from miles away, it strums darkly with a layer of feedback gently brushed across the top for good measure. Final track “Agua En Mis Manos” (water in my hands) is half screamed in Spanish, adding a punchy layer of linguistic complexity to the scaling guitar work and huge drum fills, reminiscent of acts like Raein or Kodan Armada. The ending section is monumental as all the instruments build and build to the chorus of Sing my sorrow / I feel you hollow / In the place where I tried to end it all, like a cathartic railgun surging forward firing off into the endless void.
So short and so sweet, “...In The Place Where I Tried To End It All” is a nice and quick EP from the New Jersey trio. Sonically rich and heavy but lyrically despondent and bleak. Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm have left us eagerly awaiting their next release and hopefully, will not have us waiting too long.
Check out their Bandcamp here : Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
11/07/22
