The Process of Farmakon

The first thing when I put The Process of Farmakon on, thin but monolithic and ever present hammond organs pound the listener. From then on, the plodding yet rhythmic, tom heavy drums set the tone. Much like a macabre and mysterious ritual, this song has a dark yet numbing feeling; one feels more hypnotized by the darkness than crushed by it. I apologize in advance for this sounding like a "song-by-song" review, but seeing as there are only 2 songs, it's the only logical way of analyzing The Process of Farmakon.

The Process of Farmakon is one of the "companion" EP's that Skepticism have released, where they picked two or three songs from the companion full length and presented a different take on them, with possibly another original song. Skepticism bring us two re-examined songs here, The Backward Funeral and the Raven, and The Process of Farmakon, which are analogs of Farmakon Process and The Raven and the Backward Funeral. The interpretations present here have a slightly more "claustrophobic feel", as well as slightly different use of the keyboards here. The darkness almost seems implicit at this point; The Backward Funeral and the Raven feels barer than its companion song; the feeling is more nihilistic and curious, with most of the song not even resting in the metal realm, but with a droning tom pattern most of the song and ever present reed organs. The song slows down halfway through, and seems to lose its beat completely over the course of the song. This kind of sound, which is a departure from the traditional Skepticism sound, seems to banish and numb emotion, instead of conveying it.

And there's the other song, The Process of Farmakon. This version of Farmakon Process seems to have even more extended use of keyboards than its companion track from Farmakon, as well as having interesting effects going all the way through, presumably to mimic the sounds of chemical synthesis. Even more of the psychedelic droning sound from the previous track is present here; most of the song simply goes on and on. While I would normally feel that to be a bad thing, it assists here. Riffs are drawn out, permutations are added, and the keyboards continuously grow more and more prominent, growing more psychedelic as the song draws onward. This would've been an interesting sound for Skepticism to pursue, where the darkness is more implied, and the focus is more on a hypnotic, psychedelic experience. Rather than the usual evocation sound Skepticism is known for, this presents more of a tendency to quite thoughts and emotions into a meditative hypnosis. I kinda wish Skepticism had kept on pursuing this path, instead of returning to a "safer" and more "usual" and "routine" sound with Alloy. Still, this is a worthwhile release, despite only having two songs. The versions, while being recognizably similar songs to the two companion tracks found on Farmakon, offer quite a different atmosphere than the Farmakon counterparts.