Lead and Aether

(originally posted by me to the Metal Music Archives: http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/)

Stormcrowfleet was more than enough to establish Skepticism's place in the then new funeral doom pantheon. With the great music on that album, one must wonder what would happen in a follow up? Well, approximately three years after Stormcrowfleet, Lead and Aether arrived to answer the question. Before even listening, it is worth pointing out the overall length of this album is shorter than its predecessor which might make it yet another good starting point for those new to funeral doom. Let's go!

"The Organium" starts off with pipe organs that continue when the funeral doom music starts. The keyboard production has notably improved since the last album, making them more present than ever before. With a shorter song like this that falls just short of seven minutes, it is good to see some variation here. The first big one starts at 1:18, with the guitars moving to a more prominent position and the drums going into a tribal like rhythm. The keys are still there providing the atmosphere effect. Another variation occurs around the three minute mark slowing the pace back to the original one. The pipe organ effects make you feel like you're sitting in church. But it's not you're normal church where preaching of love and peace occur. You are in the church of hell. The preaching is of despair. Oh, and you're alone; but in these funeral doom metal visualizations, you're always supposed to be alone.

"The March and the Stream" comes next. Ten plus minutes. Now we're getting to some true funeral doom taste. We begin this procession with ambient keyboards and tribal drumming with light sounding guitar eventually coming into the mix. When the vocals and the heavy guitars come in, the drumming stays the same; but the keyboards start layer the ambient and pipe organ sounds together to generate the atmosphere. The single guitar gets a little more ambitious in this song playing a slow melodic lead at one point to break away from the plodding riffing. The biggest variation here occurs at the 6:17 with the guitar tone drastically changing and at a faster pace. It keeps that tone when the vocals return again at 7:05. Plus, the keyboards get strong again at that point to make the song extra melancholic sounding. Mixtures like this make this song an interesting counterpart to the more frightful "The Organium".

Then, we have "The Falls". It begins with a mournful atmosphere portrayed through the keyboards and guitar. Indeed, I imagine being cleansed in a waterfall in the middle of a forest when I listen to this first part. It leaves us at 2:13 to be replaced with a more astral mood as the riffs and key. There's even spacey keyboards to go along with it. Then it changes again at 4:21 with acoustic sounding guitar plucking notes. This goes on for over a minute in a sorrowful passage. Funeral doom does come back to continue, climax, and end the song.

Who makes a funeral doom song shorter than six minutes? Well I guess Skepticism does because that's just as long as "Forge" is. The key is different here than the few songs before it. This song seems to be more uplifting too as if to make you arise from the lamenting depths portrayed before. The keyboards and other instruments, played in the key that they are played, makes me visualize a castle in the sky. The key returns to the way it was at the beginning of the song to climax and end this song. The keyboards really get strong here and get very powerful on the final note.

Moving on, there is "Edges". It sinks the mood back to the gloom established earlier in this album. The regal keyboards at 1:01 are quite epic, then shift over to more spacey sounding effects almost a minute later while keeping the pace and tone of the rest of the music. As we reach the climax, the pace increases and the bass plays some more notable notes.

"Aether" ends it all. It starts out with funeral doom right from the get go. The keyboards are spacey and astral sounding again. At one point in the music, the keyboards get really extravagant and even resemble violins. On the contrast, there are parts where the keys are toned down to let the guitar take the lead. Not unlike the rest of the songs, the music gets more powerful towards the end to reach a climax. The guitar blurs into a continual stream of constant noise that ends abruptly with the song...

But like "The Everdarkgreen" on Stormcrowfleet, there's a false ending. After several seconds, the music begins again with all the instruments playing and the guitar and keyboards playing at an intense pitch and different key than the rest of the song only to fade out to close the album officially.

Actually, this album is superior to Stormcrowfleet in my eyes. The songs are more varied and interesting, the production is slightly better to make the atmosphere seemingly heavier, and the keyboards are used in a somewhat superior way to project this lonely, solemn atmosphere. That's two for two for Skepticism!

Ironically, though this is the album that gets most fans hooked on Skepticism (myself included), I still consider it one of their weaker works. It's certainly still a strong album which smashes nearly anything else in funeral doom, but it's in my mind a much lesser beast to releases like 'Stormcrowfleet' or 'Aes'. Canonically, this might be their most important release: if 'Stormcrowfleet' could be shrugged off as a strange, atmospheric diversion in the metal scene alongside 'Stream From the Heavens', 'Lead and Aether' was perhaps the instrumental album in consolidating funeral doom as a real genre with its own distinct style. As you might come to see, this is both the album's pride and its downfall.

The primary issue I take with 'Lead and Aether' (or perhaps more precisely, its most revered tracks) is that it shows Skepticism as a much more self-aware musical entity, and one that seems to more clearly understand the concept of 'funeral doom' as we know it today. It's a pretty odd feature, considering I don't hear it at all in many (if any) of the band's other releases, but there's something almost obtuse about this album's most legendary tracks. Skepticism has always made dark music- after a fashion, I suppose- but tracks like 'The Organium' and 'The March and the Stream' are aware of their own darkness and use darkness as a tool, which is something that Skepticism rarely does. Skepticism has always been a band whose particular style and method of songwriting has always felt extremely organic- to hear them plotting out songs as they do on several of the tracks here in a lot of ways removes what I want to hear from them.

This album seems very distinctly split into two parts to me: the first two tracks and the closer form one part, and tracks three through five form the other. The first part is Skepticism's darker, more self-aware sound, grim and unrelenting, whereas part two sounds more like a naturally matured form of the music found on 'Stormcrowfleet'- it wouldn't surprise me at all to find the tracks were striated in this manner based on the time of their composition. Funny enough, the first part is what this album is remembered for, in particular the opening two tracks. 'The Organium' signals an arrival of sorts; the organ, always Skepticism's clearest and most definite lead instrument, is much gloomier and oppressive than usual, not cutting swaths of melody across the soundscape like on 'Stormcrowfleet' so much as crushing the listener with every stroke of a key. It's a desolate and distinctly heavy track- and while Skepticism was always desolate and heavy, this time those elements are executed in a much darker, more metallic manner.

'The March and the Stream', however, is a different beast. This suffers just as much intentional 'plotting' as 'The Organium' does, but the sheer quality of the songwriting makes it endure more to my ears. It is perhaps Skepticism's defining single track, more widely known than any other composition of theirs, and for good reason: it's one of the definitive statements of funeral doom. Gloomy, mournful, heavy, bitter, and oppressive, it's certainly one of the most atmospheric pieces that metal has ever seen, and the tiny elements that make it conclude in its closing minutes all add up to a track which almost feels more classically inspired than metallic. It's incredibly slow and meandering but never feels directionless or ambient- in short, it's what funeral doom should aspire to be and so often falls short of. The synthesis of oppressive organ, delicate guitar melodies, and growling, subdued vocals makes for a package of undeniable artistry and memorability.

I'd say, though, that the very best material on this album is found in the third through fifth tracks. A natural extension of 'Stormcrowfleet', my favorite Skepticism release, they continue the ambient, wafting style without the oppressive darkness that defines the other three tracks on this album, keeping with the sense of the epic, mournful, and prideful sounds of the first LP. 'The Falls' might be the best track on this album: it's a clear continuation of tracks like 'Pouring' from the first album, with its sweeping organ and guitar melodies, bolstered by a slightly improved production job and a greater sense of focus in the songwriting. The drumming in particular signals these songs as perhaps being written at a different time from the more oppressive ones; the intricate tomwork which defined 'Stormcrowfleet' is present on these but mostly absent from tracks like 'The Organium'.

I don't want to give the sense that the darker, more oppressive tracks on this release are bad- they're definitely not, and they still display Skepticism's unique songwriting style and mastery of aesthetics as usual. However, they don't totally grip and immerse me like the others do, and I think it's really the self-awareness that causes this problem- it's very clear that on those songs, Skepticism are playing Skepticism, rather than just letting the music emerge on its own from their minds. Still, if the result is songs like 'The March and the Stream', I don't think I have much of a place to complain about it.

At the end of the day, this simply isn't as strong to me as 'Stormcrowfleet'. However, I'd say that if you had to purchase only one Skepticism release, this is the one to get. There's no denying this album's place in the canon of funeral doom- it simply obliterates much of the competition and established much of the stylistic groundwork for other funeral doom bands we see today. Of course, you shouldn't just have one Skepticism release- you should have all of them.

Skepticism plays gradually lengthening, larger-than-death music. This is a recording that can sway, almost as if it was played on the spot; or like you're witnessing musicians go through material that is so measured and practiced that it can flow naturally with each other. Causing this nearly one-and-the-same projection of ideas and harmony. It has weight and depth, meanwhile leaving you to forget all creature comforts like you're shrunk down and as miniature as a measly particle in the wind. This is as if being rocked back and forth on a ship—more like you're traveling on something like a chartered vessel—and instead of being affected with sea sickness or cabin fever, your stomach forgives and forgets, your senses lifted and renewed. You get little ripples as you pass, like slight pulsating flickers to your ears. The air is vaporous with notes, steamed and fogged with movement. The instruments waver onward, like slow-moving freshly discharged molten rock, with you as a listener (victim) trapped on a slightly protruding piece of eroding land and seemingly no place else to go. There are slight dangers here, except shadowed with guesses and as a listener fitting their mold differently. Some might reckon a flood, or the opposition a drought; others being clamped down by its breathing closeness, or even panic by its sizeable labyrinths. But one thing is certain: this release moves on its own axis, an unimpeded juggernaut that once sent into motion is hard to stop or let go.

Something's pulling your strings—

This is some uniquely dark sounding doom metal, with organs and other departing features that are included from a keyboard that is an essential part of Skepticism's core. This is not so far from the mind-melding journey you're taken on in that early sixties horror movie 'Carnival of Souls' with the lead actress having a more than cool profession as an operator of a fully functioning church organ, and also playing an integral part to the mood and feeling of an out of body experience. This is woven and sown into the music like the hideous ugly brother in the eighties horror sub-culture movie 'Basket Case,' though when one is separated from the other it loses its symbiotic relationship, essentially losing the person. For a fresh comparison even though the next item came after, it can carry a similar basicness and ambiguousness of that more current flick the 'The Abandoned'; a feeling so odd and strange, and not about the complexities and mechanics of story, but the way it is projected and flows in. It wouldn't be too off to say that similar ideologies and atmospherics can be found in art and media as far and in between as moving pictures and written words. It similarly casts visuals that project in seismic tones, colors and apparitions. Like staring at a single painting and seeing so many things come out from that particularly captured moment. Though a meditative practice where you have to unfold your defensive arms and essentially let go.

limbs and movements go with the taming slight pulls and tugs.

There is an unimpeded journey here, transforming itself slightly, but also surely and ambling. The drums use frequent tom drum hits that sound like deep vibrating booms. Tapping his hi-hat like the Reaper taking his sweet immortal time and tapping your shoulder from behind with one bony unmistakable finger. Guitars that play notes often in thick clusters, or taking ahold and coming out with some more distinct characteristics; some single notes and effected wafting chords. It's either digging or floating, a downward-tilting ramp or elevating ramp, still determined to take your ears for a ride like the rest of the instruments. The assemblage wouldn't be complete without vocals that stretch overtop with a deeper growl. Not willing to take you away from the instruments with techniques that don't conform to each other. Yet still matching each other and becoming a collective whole. This improved themselves and is more as-one sounding than their previous album 'Stormcrowfleet' I feel. With this being more even with drum and keyboard sections by comparison. The tone of the drums matches and appears to be seamless; it slightly protrudes, though in a traditional music sense it doesn't poke out like you might think. Like the instruments instead of being meshed with bad production, like you might perceive, are precisely recorded and edited together for what they were going for, causing the album to shift as a whole. And the last thing on your mind being that they are instruments to begin with. Like you're somewhat oblivious that there is someone behind the switches, or behind the mask, instead of what is presented in calculated form.

Your path is built from leaden tools—

Effects are scattered about like someone laid the land to waste and Skepticism are ready to pick up the pieces in melancholic trajectory from loss or regret. These additions placed on top of the instruments cause them to peak and rupture the barrier by slightly taking the reins as the recordings unfold. The keyboards might sustain additions such as strings, a dreary organ, and other sounds and noises that are going for abstractness. The adjusting volume and manipulated production might hide them and bring them out of the gates when the crowd demands triumphant attention and awe. The guitars have a similar manipulation going for them. They might be heavily distorted and almost blended in, but then they might alter the sound levels and have them protrude slightly. The vocals seem to be on the same level since they aren't continually going, and popping up when needed in the slightly shifting music. Though they might add a deeper fluctuation or carry them for longer periods of time compared to some other shorter breath parts. A sort of mutation that not only inhales and exhales the same air you take in, but is frighteningly responsive and thinks and reasons throughout the recordings—S.k.e.p.t.i.c.i.s.m.: An efficiently manufactured organism.

designed as a course to persevere, punish or acquire.

This is an album that consumes, draining you from one end to the next. Being either physically life-draining, shedding some more time off your ticking life-clock and being just that much closer to having both feet in the grave. Or being mentally afflicting with your thoughts being more important than the essentials of air, shelter, hunger and thirst. 'Lead and Aether' is great for keeping you almost stuck in the present. Some recordings might pull you back in time or into forward on-looking futures. Yet, because of its consistent pace of dead-pan slowness, you'll feel as if you're a participant. As if moving and acting with it. This is an experience that takes comprehension; the music can be steady with you meanwhile in deep gravitating thoughts pertaining to it. With your head bobbing rather than banging, yet this will cause your tumblers to keep turning trying to guess its underlying meaning. A meaning that probably won't be reached as a consensus. More likely at conclusions that are left up to, you, the listener.

You're let loose, the strings fall and you've regained your size and composure. Shaking your head from side to side: 'Did the experience already begin?'

Skepticism are a band that I have recently discovered and they are simply incredible. I enjoy all of their output but especially this album: Lead & Aether what we have here is an incredibly solid Funeral Doom and also the second doom band I ever listened too besides Nortt. The atmosphere in this album is just breathtakingly beautiful. From the semi-whispered growls to the very soft drums everything is perfect and beautiful. Nothing feels out of place or funky; Everything is perfect.


In the skepticism there is no bass player but that is made up for with the keyboardist who also does an excellent job on the album. There is bass heard in the album but its obviously the keyboard. The guitars here are heavy but put back a little in the mix to help create an overall atmosphere. This is commonplace on all skepticism material.


The songs here don't get boring and are all well crafted. From the classic March and the Stream to my personal favorite Aether all the songs are great. In conclusion if you like Funeral Doom and don't have this album or any other Skepticism material you should go buy it right NOW.