San Francisco label The Flenser has a good ear for heavy things. In recent years, they’ve released many high-quality tomes of metal, and that roster includes releases from Have A Nice Life, Botanist, and Deafheaven. However, of their hundreds of records, few come close to Bell Witch’s 2012 LP *Longing* for sheer darkness. One of the reasons the bass-and-drum duo’s music is so rich in darkness is their ability to contrast thick doom with passages of harmony, eerie heathen choral.