After Thergothon and a few proto-releases came the next big name in Funeral Doom- Skepticism. Similarly to Stream From the Heavens we are given an album so perfect in its simultaneously epic and atmospheric nature, with a similarly quiet production and long stretches of synth and soft drums that set up the more grandiose moments of doom. Unlike Thergothon, however, Skepticism’s songwriting approach here is far more simplistic. Each song is really only shaped by simple, repeating power chord riffs and harmonium/organ keys to go over them, but the melodies are a lot more catchy than you usually find in Funeral Doom. Funeral Doom definitely isn’t the genre to have a lot going on in the first place, I don’t know if I’d call it minimalist; but here Skepticism display a very clever use of the bare essentials to create something monolithic, and ultimately makes it that much more nostalgiac for me. The atmosphere here isn’t forced, it’s acquired as a product of its time. The sound throughout is haunting, melancholy yet peaceful, like standing at the shores of an infinite horizon where your ship will soon set sail, leaving your home and past behind you, but knowing even greater things await. It immediately demands your attention and never lets go, and gains more of your respect with every listen as the true meaning of the album slowly presents itself to you. This is an homage to the elegance in darkness. Certain passages tend to be medieval in nature, with a dungeon-like presence that emerges from the bass, which at times is the loudest thing in the mix, but still not overly prevalent as it blends with the guitar and creates a thick layer of sound. Another thing to note is the unique choice of drums, quieter in the mix and not a complete focus, but through the use of mallets instead of traditional drumsticks offer a harrowing cultish drum sound. Like Thergothon it’s impossible to pick apart the pieces of this album bit by bit and understand compositionally what makes it great, as it contains that undeniably magical essence that forms with the birth of a truly unique album. It’s a masterpiece through and through and a Funeral Doom essential. Despite having very good releases going forth, Skepticism would never really return to having such a perfect sound as this, save for the “Ethere” EP a few years later which actually contains perhaps their best material. Otherwise Stormcrowfleet is still a 10/10.

Skepticism at Maryland Deathfest (Live Review):

I had the pleasure of seeing Skepticism live last year at Maryland Deathfest so I thought I’d offer some insight into their performance. Despite being the last band to play that night and delaying their set by almost 2 hours (completely the venue’s fault I’m sure), resulting in a 1:00 am performance, they absolutely killed it and the atmosphere is even more prevalent when it’s right in front of you. I think this is a lot of the appeal of Stormcrowfleet as well, it’s an album that sounds as if it were played live in a room rather than having the production tweaked to studio quality. So all those later Skepticism songs, while good on their own, are much better in a live presence as the instruments come together with the natural ambience of the surrounding air, plus feeling the crushing weight of the guitars and the heavy-hitting drums in real time is so much more than most Funeral Doom bands could do artificially. The same things could be said about any band performing live, but in a Funeral Doom context where atmosphere is key it is much more important. Unfortunately Skepticism had to cut songs from the setlist because the venue operators took forever to get them on the stage in the first place, which sucks, but what’s beyond me is that they chose to cut both Sign of a Storm and The March and the Stream and play only newer songs instead. I didn’t learn this until afterwards of course, and while I was definitely satisfied with the performance I got, I couldn’t help but be frustrated at not getting to hear my two favorite Skepticism tracks live. They even had time to play one song after the closing music and still didn’t pick one of those. Nevertheless they played good songs such as The Arrival and The Swan and the Raven, and I’m very grateful for having seen them perform at all since MDF was having a particularly rough night.