Band:	Skepticism
Album:	Ordeal
Style:	Funeral doom metal
Release date:	September 18, 2015
A review by:	Auntie Sahar

01. You
02. Momentary
03. The Departure
04. March Incomplete
05. The Road
06. Closing Music
07. Pouring
08. The March And The Stream

How does a band that pioneered a particular style still stay relevant within said style multiple decades down the road?

Consistency, folks. It's all about consistency. Forming their band in 1991, the funeral doom godfathers in Skepticism were never in a rush to crank out material. The fact that 2015 sees them putting out their fifth full length album in an over 20 year career should tell you something about how these guys prefer to go for quality over quantity. Ordeal sees the band more or less sticking to the same formula that has always worked for them: slow, well paced funeral doom, not of the evil, crushing variety, but more of the bright, highly melodic, and almost spiritually uplifting type. The music still has a distinctly sad, melancholic vibe running throughout it, but more in a "life is so sad, let me me hold you" way than an "embrace the darkness, you're going to die anyway" sort of way. The stunningly beautiful opener "You" is a perfect example.

When I explore all the other funeral doom bands that are out there, I often note a problem with many, with their music becoming monotonous, lacking little variation, and ultimately just becoming a very stale "slow doom + growls + keyboards" formula. But this simply isn't the case with Skepticism. On Ordeal there is a very great feeling that each track is a unique creation unto itself, and there's enough of a back and forth transition between the music's doom core and its atmospheric underbelly to keep listeners intrigued. "The Road," for example, is perhaps the heaviest track of the album, lacking much of the prevalence of melody that appear elsewhere. Other tracks, such as "Closing Music," lean more towards said melody, with a high presence of clean guitar lines, and that distinct organ sound that made Stormcrowfleet so great back in the day and that continues to define Skepticism's sound 20 years later.

Ordeal is a case of something that doesn't occur very often: the pioneers of a certain sound telling all their modern day disciples to sit down and take notice, and actually succeeding in getting them to pay attention. While there are certainly a host of excellent funeral doom bands that have been formed within the past decade or so, this is still an album that they can all afford to take a lesson from, in terms of diversity of sound, pacing of the composition, and much, much more. Heavy, beautiful, and at times surprisingly relaxing, with Ordeal Skepticism are proving that they haven't lost any steam or momentum with their music at all, and can still be looked up to as an excellent example of how to get things done by all their younger brothers in funeral doom.

Doom AOTY contender for sure. Go and get it.