There always seems to be a moment with me when a Skepticism album just becomes the world. Sometimes, as with Alloy, it is literally the first notes, that exhalation as it breathes life into the room. Other times, as with Companion it is the opening notes of the final song ‘The Swan And The Raven’ when the string sound ushers it in. Then I return to the beginning and find that the album prefacing the funeral doom Emperors’ thirtieth year has just opened up for me.
It is always odd, difficult work reviewing Skepticism as they are…Skepticism: With Thergothon they share the title of founding fathers of their genre, their sound has slowly but majestically become what it is and even now no one else sounds like them. They are simply imperious and elegant down to their souls. A sumptuous, rich, slightly decadent swell of dense, slow riffs and enveloping organ, the colour of strings, the strangely aching, melancholic touch to the harsh vocals and a sombre, slow waltz towards their emotional heart.
Six years is no wait in the Empire of Skepticism, they are ageless and everything comes in its time.
‘Calla’ which enters with their traditional complete lack of preamble, is almost strident for them. It has an air of determination, a need to express itself amidst the string sounds and organ and the slow but stuttering riff. ‘The Intertwined’, a meditation on the twin strands of the solitary existence and the company of others moves on. It arrives as a procession with the tension between these two states of existence plain. A gorgeous melody, a dark push of the harsh riff, a shift in the vocals from acceptance to something like pronouncement. The King In Yellow comes, guarded perhaps.
‘The March Of The Four’ might with its haunting organ sound and sombre tone be a history of the band itself. That magnificent charm of individuals who seem never to be out of step with each other even though they may well all be out of step with the outside world. Cavernous, whispering of ages, as the string sounds lead the audience in that slow, considered dance and the guitar charts the passage of time. Ten minutes of beauty and reflection that pass like a blink and yet speak of decades.
‘Passage’ brings a disturbing edge in the shivering guitar overture. There is a restless, almost nightmare feel to it. Someone sleeping with little ease. A juddering heavy riff, a slow heavy step into the dark. It has a turbulence, a feeling of thin boards over hollow ground bending dangerously with their step. A gothic vein threads through as though someone watches from behind thick curtains as the organ takes command. And with a single strike of the clock we wake. Or at least our eyes open.
‘The Inevitable’. A title so suitable for Skepticism. There is always a sense that they move towards an inevitable factor. An acoustic passage leads to a wondrous open world. There is a feel of acceptance of this inevitability, even a slow, knowing smile. A beauty that is nothing to be feared, but respected all the same.
And ‘The Swan And The Raven’. Deep short bowing across a double bass maybe. Strings building as the keyboards paint a dark imperial world for us. The layering is patient, and the glacial speed comes with such grace. The guitar spirals upwards, the vocals reaching for the same beacon and…oh my heart beats like slow but aeons deep breaths in time with the bass undercurrent. This is their Empire, their land. So deep and rich and dark that the air pulses as they step slowly through its folds. Ominous but only because I am in the presence of majesty and I know that, soon, I will have to leave.
And as I take that melancholy farewell, I am at least comforted on my journey by the knowledge that the Emperor still sits on his throne, untouched, unmatched and ageless and that I can return, I know the way. The same road travelled for three decades.
Skepticism.
They simply are the Empire.
(10/10 Gizmo)
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