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Volume 7, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2052-3998
  • E-ISSN: 2052-4005

Abstract

, by the funeral doom metal band Bell Witch, is an immense 83-minute composition in which tonal organization plays an essential role in enhancing and creating meaning. Little analytical attention has been paid to doom metal; armed with a flexible conception of theories of tonal harmony and my full transcription of the album, I show that slow, repetitive music and rich engagement with musical details are not mutually exclusive. I present an analysis in which the tonal drama centres around slowly shifting bass support for a persistent melody F natural. At first, this F appears as a dissonant ninth over an E♭, then as a hollow fifth above a B♭ and finally as a consonant major third above D♭. I understand this progression as a sonic analogue for the grieving process that, according to interviews with the band, is the album’s main focus.

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2021-06-01
2025-05-22
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/content/journals/10.1386/mms_00049_1
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Ghostly longing: Tonality as grieving in Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper
Metal Music Studies 7, 277 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1386/mms_00049_1
/content/journals/10.1386/mms_00049_1
/content/journals/10.1386/mms_00049_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): analysis; Bell Witch; doom metal; ghosts; harmony; hermeneutics; tonality

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