Stygian Bough: Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin with 40 Watt Sun (solo) + Oldest Sea at Underground ArtsFriday, June 5, 2026 Doors: 7:30 PM | Show: 8:30 PM 21+ About Underground Arts Visit undergroundarts.org for venue details including how to get here, parking, FAQ, UA Merch, Private Events, & everything else - Food, Concessions + Drink Menus | Venue FAQ | Contact Info Coming to this show with a crew of 6 or more? Select areas of the Black Box (aka: UA's auxillary lounge) are now available for rental during any of our concerts, dance parties, or events! Whether you’re celebrating a birthday and looking for some space to hang in between sets, gathering your pals for a small reunion, or just looking for some breathing room, our team can help! Our space has multiple options for accommodating private parties during concerts and dance parties, so fill out THIS FORM to request more information and create a one of a kind experience for you and your party. - About Stygian Bough Website | Spotify In our human minds, according to the Law of Contagious Magic as described in The Golden Bough by anthropologist James Frazer, contact between two objects creates an inseparable thread between them. A gift from a dead friend forever holds this magic like a scar reflecting a wound. Similarly, a piece of food that touches the floor is suddenly abject and rotten. Pairing this notion with the Law of Similarity Magic, as described by Frazer, where an object resembling another can share its power, a musical notion can be understood to serve as an unbodied conduit of such magics; an emotional contact between the music and audience wherein such sorcery threads an inseparable seam that, for a time, resemble each other. Aptly named in reference to the aforementioned book, on Stygian Bough Volume II, the collaboration between Bell Witch (Dylan Desmond, Jesse Shreibman) and Aerial Ruin (Erik Moggridge) enlivens its unbodied presence resembling both collaborating projects as a conduit in its own separate entity. In the course of an hour, four musical pieces set themselves apart from the catalogs of both individual bands and branch into new territory all the while threaded to the original encounter. Over the album a cyclical world unfolds in which different perspectives of how various forms of worship empower, eclipse, destroy and feed on each other is explored. "All four songs explore different aspects of worship or awe—transcendent experiences in different contexts," vocalist & guitarist Erik Moggridge says. “Waves Became The Sky,” the opening track on Volume II, recalls “Rows (of Endless Waves)” from Bell Witch’s debut album Longing. It was here that Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin had initial contact. The song expands on the 2012 original’s theme pondering, as Moggridge says, “the battle of scientific thinking compared to superstitious thinking.” And it wastes no time in its approach; sonic waves form an immediate pulse well known to anyone familiar with Bell Witch and Stygian Bough Volume I. The immediacy of Moggridge’s guitar and vocal choruses add layer upon layer of harmonic depth with polyrhythmic melodies as they soar with Desmond’s two handed method of bass guitar. “King of the Wood,” quickly lurks into an abyss death-doom fans of Thergothon and My Dying Bride will find familiarity in. On the track, Moggridge says it is “about rapture and confusion that come from calculating scale, from the very small to the very large.” Shreibman’s drum passages mirror the fluidity of the melodic instruments. But before an emotional pinnacle can be reached the track slips into a swirling galaxy resembling the expansiveness of Tangerine Dream echoing from far inside the black hole at its center. Soon Moggridge’s vocals return with a haunting passage that Shreibman’s drums soon interrupt with the immediacy of a nuclear bomb. Track three, “From Dominion,” opens to the power trio resembling the elements of Aerial Ruin’s dark folk temperaments. With a voice one can imagine emerging from some forgotten dimension in ancient Albion, Moggridge pulls thread as much enchantment as song. Soon enough the brooding acoustics transform into soaring melodies with the dueling harmonic magic of a Thin Lizzy guitar solo riding the rhythmic pounding of Shreibman’s drums. At its most tangible moments, the song could almost be said to have been constructed with the repeating verses and choruses common in folk music. Moggridge states that “Told and Leadened,” the album’s closer and longest track clocking in at just over nineteen minutes, “is about the cycles of power and how they eclipse and prop each other up.” The song starts like a tide slowly returning after its preceding wave. Bass feedback and a repetitious guitar rhythm foreshadow Shreibman’s drums once again exploding in an urgency like that of early doom classicists Candlemass. The waves continue throughout, recalling the rising and falling intensities in the song structures established on 2020’s Volume I, which Blabbermouth declared "Contender for doom metal album of the year." In a harmonic break in the composition, Shreibman embarks on a drum passage reminding one of the outro to Neurosis’ Enemy of the Sun. Coincidentally, the album was also recorded by Billy Anderson in Portland. Anderson has worked on 3 prior Bell Witch recordings (Four Phantoms, Mirror Reaper, Clandestine Gate). "There's a creative camaraderie that we have with him," Desmond says. "He knows where we're coming from. He's worked with us on numerous other projects, but his outsider's perspective is particularly valuable, like a filter system that helps me see it objectively, rather than subjectively." The separation of tracks, uncommon in Bell Witch’s modern era, remains compositionally fluid between each piece. "This is as close to traditional songwriting as any of us have done together” says Shreibman. "We gave special attention to a lot of polyphonic passages,” Desmond adds, "which is a rarity in past (Bell Witch) records due to limitations of instrumentation, a two piece band can only play so many instruments at once. This applies even more so to the solo act of Aerial Ruin.” The result is a commanding four songs steeped in mysticism, legend, and the examination of "the connective threads that shape and influence the culture, mythology, and customs of all human societies throughout time in unique, localized ways as referenced in the Golden Bough,” says Desmond. The cover features a stunning painting by acclaimed artist Denis Forkas (Behemoth, Wolves in the Throne Room). The piece encapsulates the focused attention and emotional heft of Stygian Bough Volume II. About 40 Watt Sun Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify | Apple Music 40 Watt Sun is the musical project of singer, guitarist and songwriter Patrick Walker, founded in early 2009 following the dissolution of his previous band, Warning, one of the most important, highly regarded and influential bands to emerge from the ‘90s doom metal scene. The music of 40 Watt Sun is characterised by spare and deliberate arrangements, down-tempo rhythms, and Patrick Walker’s poignant and idiosyncratic vocals and introspective, often darkly-confessional lyrics. Hank Shteamer of Rolling Stone magazine has described the band’s music as “a poetic, gradually unfolding dirge rock”. About Oldest Sea Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify | Apple Music Formed in 2017 by songwriter Sam Marandola, Oldest Sea began as one woman’s personal exploration of the darker side of experimental folk music. Having newly expanded the project to a full band, Marandola and company now find themselves passing through ethereal corridors and liminal soundscapes with increasingly heavy steps. The enlarged sonic palette finds Oldest Sea deftly merging Marandola’s haunting solo musical passages with massive walls of grit and distortion. On their debut EP, Strange and Eternal, each composition seems to gently undulate its way into existence, all the while building inexorably toward a darkly atmospheric presence of immense proportions. The songs meander along paths adjacent to ambient folk music and the plaintive sounds of Americana, finding their way into the vast ominous territory occupied by doom and post-metal. Inspired by dreams and distance and the sounds of nature, Marandola combines these influences into pieces that are intensely emotional and evocative, yet simultaneously illusory and diffuse. Listening to the songs on Strange and Eternal often feels like trying to recall a particularly intense dream just after waking - a sense of deep meaning and emotional connection is undeniable, though trying to bring to mind the detail of it somehow feels impossible. In this, Oldest Sea represents a unique and welcome entry into the canon of atmospheric heavy music as they continue to expand upon and perfect their otherworldly mystique. Please note the Underground Arts Safety Policy: Although not encouraged by Underground Arts or the Artist, moshing, crowd surfing or stage diving activities may take place at this event. Moshing, crowd surfing and entering such areas may be dangerous, and you do either at your own risk. Behavior deemed inappropriate, harmful or disrespectful by our event staff can result in removal from the venue without a refund. The safety of our patrons, staff and artists is our top priority and we expect all guests to treat others with respect.