Band:	Skepticism
Album:	Alloy
Style:	Funeral doom metal
Release date:	October 2008

01. The Arrival
02. March October
03. Antimony
04. The Curtain
05. Pendulum
06. Oars In The Dusk

I like my doom sound clear and well produced. In my opinion this kind of music demands clear production, because it's the best way to convey heaviness, deep guitar sound, spacey keyboards and low, guttural vocals (as well as clean ones). Sucky production that tries to rival Darkthrone's Transylvanian Hunger in terms of muffled fuzziness simply puts me off. I don't want to listen to music that is played to me through amps and speakers tucked in thick blankets, or comfortably placed on the bottom of a swimming pool somewhere in eastern Siberia. Bad production destroys the atmosphere that doom should create in the listener's mind. That's why I think that The Divinity of Oceans is a better Ahab album than Call of the Wretched Sea also because is sounds much better. I would like Wormphlegm much more if they didn't sound like shit... I do appreciate many badly-produced doom albums though, I just wish they sounded better...

Skepticism is no exception. As much as I like Stromcrowfleet and Lead and Aether, I think they'd be much better off if someone removed those thick blankets from the microphones used to record these albums. Admittedly, the blankets are much thinner on Lead and Aether, and they seem to have been almost completely removed on the band's next full-length release, Farmakon. Skepticism sounds better and better with every album, and the latest one shows that they've found their perfect sound at last.

Excellent production quality is the first thing that hits your eardrums when you put Alloy in your CD player. The first track on the album, "The Arrival", simply hammered me into my armchair with its incredible heaviness, accentuated by the trademark of Skepticism - those wonderfully horror-movie-like church organs (they will always remind me of Mercyful Fate's "The Oath" - one of the best song intros ever!). The guitars plod along at a snail's pace, the keyboards turn your room into a cathedral at midnight, the vocals spell utter decimation of your soul - that's Skepticism in a nutshell for you. I can't imagine a better opener to a doom album than "The Arrival".

And it only gets better. "March October" quickly claimed the throne as the best Skepticism song on my private list - and I thought that the brilliant untitled track from Farmakon would never be toppled. "Antimony" wins my affections thanks to the great use of keyboards, especially when all other instruments go quiet - check them 36 seconds into the song. The motive they play is simple, delicate, and yet it manages to be eerie and creepy at the same time. That ethereal motive reappears several times throughout the song, always standing in stark contrast with the wall of sound that comes before and after it. Just brilliant.

Alloy is full of such tasty details. The acoustic intro of "Pendulum", the guitar "solo" about 6 minutes into "March October", the powerful drums at the end of "Oars in the Dusk". Although at first glance all six songs may seem similar, they're actually very varied, sparkling with the musicians' inventiveness and creativity.

Talk about a perfect doom album. Sorry, my dear Fins, that place is taken by your countrymen Shape Of Despair and their tour de force, Angels of Distress. But you rank just behind them.