Alloy

Skepticism emerged in the 90's as the leaders of the funeral doom metal genre, with landmark albums Stormcrowfleet and Lead and Aether, which possessed a quite dark, ethereal, and morose sound. That's not an easy achievement. However, I cannot judge Alloy on past successes of Skepticism; the seed of this review with respect to Alloy must come from within Alloy. So here goes:

To those who know Skepticism, there will be no surprises here. Skepticism has the sound they pioneered down to a T, I must say. The ethereal, floating, guitars; crushing, depressive, omnipresent keys; Slow, expressive drums drummed with padded mallets instead of sticks, lending it more of a "thud" sound than a "crack" sound; and the vocals of Matti. Little has changed in that formula since Lead and Aether. If you've heard Lead and Aether, you've heard the seed of Alloy. I would venture that Skepticism did nothing particularly new here, instead being content with the usual formula. Melodies come and go, each the same mixture of mournful and ethereally hopeful, and while the guitar volume may indeed be bumped up significantly compared to Farmakon, Alloy's immediate predecessor, the basic formula established by Lead and Aether (as well as its sibling EP Ethere) and perfected by Aes has not changed much.

I heard a tiny bit of evolution with respect to the keyboard use on Farmakon, and was hoping Skepticism would go further on that route, maybe modifying their sound slightly. Well, Alloy is somewhat of a retreat. The songs have grown simpler and with increased use of guitars. That, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. Neither is that the songs are darker, much like Skepticism's earlier material, rather than slightly tongue-in-cheek, like Farmakon, with slightly less subtle melodies. None of these things really harm Skepticism, since they seem to have this whole routine well-rehearsed, and if Alloy is your introduction to Skepticism, then you will probably end up liking Skepticism. In fact, this might be better for introducing someone to Skepticism, due to the simpler chordal structures, less varied tonal color, and louder guitars. In most ways, Alloy is more accessible than previous efforts. Most songs cut immediately to the chase, busting out immediately with the molasses chords, and it doesn't seem to change.

However, upon repeated listens, it seems that I would much simply just prefer their older material. Farmakon offered a slightly more complex take on the "Skepticism sound", but Alloy does nothing with it at all particularly novel. I still find that Lead and Aether and, to some extent, Stormcrowfleet, very much indeed get more listens than this. The EP's, too, form a nice collection of different takes on Skepticism's basic formula, which is also why I feel, after listening to their entire discography, that Alloy presents the fewest reasons for re-listening (maybe Towards My End also suffers from the same ailment).

Still, Skepticism is still Skepticism, and while Alloy may present few novel or particularly new ideas regarding their basic formula, it's a good listen. It's just that this formula has been executed many times in Skepticism's past much better, and much like how I prefer hamburgers from "hole in the wall" dives rather than McDonald's, Alloy seems to be quite a bit more homogeneous and "safer" than previous works by Skepticism. True to what I mentioned in the beginning, to rate it on its own merits, it's not a bad album by any means. It's just that we've all heard it already before. After nearly twenty years as a band and 15 doing what has been essentially the same formula, it gets a tiny bit two dimensional. Some bands never change the formula (Sodom, for example) and it doesn't seem to be too bad of a problem. Unfortunately, it just prevents said bands from really being excellent. This is sad, because I considered Skepticism to be an excellent band. Alloy, however, is not an excellent nor an exceptional release. It's just more Skepticism.