Skepticism - Ordeal

By Kaptain Carbon. Max from Metal Bandcamp and I had a joke about me reviewing the new Skepticism. I was reviewing a lot at the time and made mention that if my article was ever delayed it would fit the template of funeral doom.

By Kaptain Carbon.


Max from Metal Bandcamp and I had a joke about me reviewing the new Skepticism. I was reviewing a lot at the time and made mention that if my article was ever delayed it would fit the template of funeral doom. I would like to imagine my joke is just getting funnier the more time passes between the release date and and when I finally review it. Ordeal was released on September 18th, 2015 Let us look at the date. Holy shit, it is almost 2016. I still made it before the end of the year however.

For as much as I was sweating doing this review, the fact remains that the Finnish funeral doom act Skepticism takes their time with records. Ordeal is the band’s 5th record and followup to 2008’s Alloy. That is seven years between albums. I am not making this sort of thing up. Ordeal treads on a very long carpet of already praised records, with specific mentions to Stormcrowfleet and Lead and Aether, both which cemented the band as masters of gloom. 2015 sees a new record coming in at an almost unmanageable 1 hour and 17 minutes. With this density, I think I will be good for the next 10 years.

Skepticism 2012. Photos by Jo T.

I’m sorry, where are my manners? You maybe asking yourself what is happening on this record, and in funeral doom in general. Why in the world is it so slow? It is true that funeral doom, or at least the name, can send people into convulsions over the needless hairsplitting of genres. The music jogs along to the tempo of a funeral dirge, the guitars often times break into wails, and the vocals are derived from death/doom so they creep across mortuary floors. Though funeral doom is practiced by probably a little more than a dozen bands, the fact remains that Skepticism, along with bands like Mournful Congregation, Thergothon, and Esoteric have carved out a wonderful niche full of fog and perpetual longing. The whole atmosphere is meant to be suffocating in its grief and gloom. Ordeal continues this...well...ordeal….by not reinventing funeral doom’s template but rather contributing to its upkeep and restoration.

Ordeal may be Skepticism's most refined effort, but it is only experienced after spending more than an hour with its sound. The band’s structure is a godsend for those who find sitting through 10 plus minute doom songs tiring. Songs like “The March Incomplete” have enough variety between solos and breaks to make the whole experience rewarding and emotionally effective. “Closing Music” does a wonderful job of transforming the atmosphere of older songs like “Organaium” off of Lead and Aether into an actively engaging song that doesn’t just suffocate but rather extols the virtues of misery.

Skepticism 2012. Photos by Jo T.

Skepticism is quietly shining through their most recent albums if only for the fact that the production value is edging towards refinement. Though Stormcrowfleet remains one of the band's most traveled to destinations, it and albums like Lead and Aether are woefully buried under noise and fog. 2008’s Alloy continued the band’s trudge out of the swamp and into the bog that sits sort of beside the swamp. One can hear the difference in “The March and the Stream,” which originally was released on Lead and Aether in 1996 but is given a glamorous makeover with a richer palette of sound and production.

It took me a little bit, and in fact even longer to get around to this album, but I believe the wait was necessary to fully process Ordeal. This is not a record one goes a couple of times through before skipping off to something else. Skepticism has fully shown themselves as masters of their craft and effectively being bummed out for the past several decades.

Spotlight: Metalhit

Digital distributor Metalhit has opened a Bandcamp where there's currently 147 albums available from their catalog, all for the low price of $4.95! In one fell swoop Metalhit have managed to vastly improve your metal life on Bandcamp, and also make it more complicated. Allow me to explain. The good things are obvious: Lots of great albums for a very fair price, most of which haven't been available on Bandcamp before. It's the albums that already are available on Bandcamp that complicates things a little.

Take Sunyata by Greek black metallers Acrimonious. Available on Metalhit for $4.95, and on the Agonia Records Bandcamp for $9.99. Same thing with releases from other labels, you can often find them cheaper on the Metalhit Bandcamp. But also the opposite: The Womb Beyond The World, funeral doom by The Howling Void released by Solitude Productions, and available for $4, and off course for $4.95 from Metalhit. And the excellent black metal demo from Hellige, which Metalhit sells for the usual price, is available as a free download from the Hellige Bandcamp! So if you're interested in the best deal for an album, it sometimes pay to be diligent and search Bandcamp to see what is available.

I'm featuring four albums from the Metalhit catalog. The first two are releases from last year that I have been eagerly awaiting to see released on Bandcamp, the last two examples of the breath of excellent albums Metalhit has made available. Anhedonist - Netherwards combines forlorn majestic doom and grotesque death as Atanamar Sunyata puts it, and he continues:

Reverberant clean guitar lines bleed into rivers of molten magma and then rush into torrents of raging death. The guitars sprawl out across the stereo field, filling a cavernous soundscape with spine-chilling repartee. The drums are as judiciously dynamic as the songs, keeping modest time in moments of mire, stepping on the pedals for acceleration and bringing the animalistic fury when called upon.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Deus Otiosus - Godless is death metal from Denmark, with distinct tunes and a knack for not sounding like all the other death metal bands. The mighty Autothrall explains:

The meaty, clear riffing patterns offer a hybrid of dark West Coast thrash like Slayer or Possessed and steadier death metal grooves from the 90s, threaded with tremolo picked passages that betray a hint of a Swedish black/death metal influence. Often there will be eruptions of more uptempo melodies you might expect of Deceased (as in "Cast from Heaven"), but they can also creep along with a cleaner, less crushing death/doom aesthetic.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Aosoth - III is an example of French black metal when it is best. Not much more needs to be said really, but That's How Kids Dies waxed poetically about the album:

Simply put, III is a pitch-black womb of distortion, inviting you to crawl deep inside and die. The album seethes and lurches; the maw of the great abyss opens wide, yawning your demise. Its atmosphere recalls Aosoth’s French black metal brethren such as Deathspell Omega, but Aosoth’s approach is less frenzied and angular, more deliberate and methodical. III also defies black metal convention by possessing crushing levels of low end; there is a eerie, droning ambience that pervades the entire album, adding to its mesmerizing qualities and tapping into something deeply primal, the rotten blackness that lies at the core of all human life, the capacity for unspeakable evil.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Skepticism - Stormcrowfleet from 1995 is considered one of the albums that gave birth to the funeral doom genre. I haven't had time to listen to the entire album yet, but a string of very positive reviews on Metal Archives has piqued my interest. There seems to be an ancient beauty here, one that you can see and hear, but are forbidden to touch. - this sounds like the kind of funeral doom I could easily loose myself in.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]