Skepticism - Alloy
December 1 2008 at 06:26:32 AM
The end, again.
The fourth album from Finland's Skepticism has received too few mentions in the music press since its release last October, yet it is not only among this years decidedly few great records, but perhaps also the finest moment of the band's career. How does a record this massive slip through the cracks? For once, the fault lies not entirely with the usual cadre of assembly-line critics. Skepticism's long unchanged lineup have themselves appeared wary of recognition, only gradually revealing themselves over time, offering up each new album with remarkably little hype and growing acclaim. A take it or leave it affair as it has always been for a band most frequently cited as the founding fathers of "Funeral Doom." On
Alloy, however, Skepticism subvert this very distinction, crafting a work not of doleful solace and still remorse, but of eagerness to mix within, and joining in a great advection, almost joyful in their departure.
Alloy is without question the most accessible Skepticism album to date. One need not be familiar with their prior albums to find it engaging, yet even as the group performs what amounts to the closest they've come to a "single" in the nearly nine-minute "Antimony" it's clear they've returned on their own terms.
Alloy, composed of many, reconciles all shades into this one distinct voice, captured with the most professional sound of the band's career. No longer defined by the "swimmer's ear" ambience of their past achievements, each instrument is granted greater strength and clarity, becomes alive and made more effective – immediately - without sacrificing the subtlety of underlying melody. The old church organ burning long into the night is once more attended by the cold pulse of drum and a lone, hulking guitar reaching depths that neither Sunn nor Earth have since known in mood and feeling. Not camp or soundtrack, but closer to sacred music in both song and verse: if this music is in part "funereal" then it's also so much more. As it is, such mourning is never so defined, and if at all present, only temporary. The words sorrow, grief and pain find no place here. Instead there is a sense of untethered movement and the need to keep moving amid potentially hopeless drifts. My first impression of Alloy was that it was not unlike attending a wedding ceremony, or even Christmas mass, with the opening track "The Arrival" unfolding brightly, as some strange kind of noel. Birth and death then figured equally, two roles assigned as Skepticism's vocalist Matti, a mountain of a man with imposing voice to match, readily accepts this final duty; his words rolling on hypnotically, as if to talk one down only to begin again. The album's final verse betraying no regrets or false deliverance, only a firm drive towards completion. Call it destiny then, and together with them, "leave for others words of laments and proudly join the tunes resounding." Highly Recommended.
[Todd DePalma]
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Lead & Aether along with Aethre (for the superior version of 'The March and the Stream') have kept myecompany for some years now, they're for me full with what is almost archetypal emotion. A calm stillness, deeper, as if natural... yet with the melancholy of the human. I listened to that music a lot when I made this : http://asides-bsides.blogspot.com/2008/10/deep-inside-earth.html)
On one hand I don't really need more Skepticism music, on the other I'm glad to see they need to make more of it. I see them and Dolorian as opposite sides of the same coin.