Skepticism - aes mCD Review

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2003-06-21 : Black fan
RElaxing tunes!
2002-08-04 : Jenn Matthews : Link
Some killer death metal here. This is one song, it is 27:52 minutes long too. The vocals aren’t used too much either, so he isn’t singing for the whole 30 minutes. The whole song is real slow. There are some real awesome parts to this song. You don’t get bored with this either, because they are doing so many different things, it is unreal. This is killer.
2002-08-04 : eternalfrost : Link
Finland does it again! Somewhat of a departure from older style. Still slow, production's a little cleaner, drums still heavy as fuck with an overall enormous sound persisting. Festively depressing music. Synth sound similar to that on Thergothon's recordings. Sorrow incarnate. Numbing 27 minute minimalistic epic. You need.
2002-08-04 : Razorfever : Link
Until I listened to Skepticism, I had previously thought that music has taken me as far as it possibly could. I've explored every extreme and been affected accordingly, but haven't really been able to declare the listening of any particular band a true "experience." This is different. When someone listens to Aes, that person is taken on a journey that expands on nearly the entire spectrum of human emotion. Aes is a draining, heaving mass of uncompromising heaviness, and as primitive as that sounds, the tidal nature of the musical delivery is wonderfully emotive, provocative, and suffocating.

Skepticism expresses more emotion in one (27 minute) track than most bands do in full albums with differing song structures. Aes does have several movements as it progresses, but the first theme envelops the work and overlies the entire structure. One would think that this movement would get boring (it is just two alternating chords) but the build-up is done so flawlessly that even after 27 minutes I did not want it to end. Very tasteful keyboards cause the visceral guitar work to blossom into an inviting yet sinister beauty as the vocals drone out like suicide mutterings. At times I feel buried in sand when listening to Aes, other times the weight of everything makes me feel like I'm floating, especially when reading along with the lyrics, which depict a surreal portrait of apocalyptic transcendence. Aes lurches toward climaxes than ebbs out just when it seems to become too overwhelming, causing listeners to breathe a sigh of relief as the tide washes back from over their heads. It teases you with a disturbing, just-out-of-reach mystery and shapeshifts as soon as it appears comprehensible. As the smoke clears and the 27 minutes are up, the trance remains and you must listen to it again.

The feeling Aes gives you as you listen to it is almost indescribable, which makes this a very difficult review to write, but I encourage all to seek this disc out and experience it, because despite its short time frame and the difficulty of developing a single focused vision effectively, there is little out there that achieves this level of sonic transcendence in any musical genre.
2002-08-04 : hellfrost : Link
Masters of funeral doom Skepticism recorded this nearly-28-minute-long piece “Aes" in Autumn 1998, and released it on their longtime label RED STREAM in 1999. A more melodic and earthy direction to their bleak sound you could say, the atmosphere is still cold as ever despite having a more “classic” sound than the crushing dirge heaviness of 1998’s Lead & Aether. To say that Skepticism share a thing or two in common with Black Sabbath(during their slowest moments, of course) shouldn’t be hard to fathom, but believe it or not I find a little Led Zeppelin in the mix too. The whispery, growled vocals remain buried beneath the mammoth riffs for pretty much the entire opus, forging the always-icy struggle between emotion and non-emotion found in Skepticism’s music. A simple, cascading riff forms in the early parts of the track, slowly becoming more prominent until it upholds the song’s MASSIVE final 3 minutes. For certain, to truly appreciate this disc volume is a must, headphones come strongly recommended. A must-have for the doom aficionado, Aes is a magnificent sign of things to come if future Skepticism material is anything like it. 27:52 100/100.
Tuesday, October 02, 2001 - 10:14:07 AM : Kiran
The nice thing about reviewing this album, or better: this Mcd (SCD would be more appropriate), is that I don't have to talk about many songs. The whole Mcd consists of one, 'endless' 28 minute long track. As always, Skepticism's music is dark, heavy, S.L.O.W.™ and hypnotic. The trance starts as soon as you push the 'play' button and it won't leave you until you realize that it's silent again, half an hour later. So don't put this album on when you have work to do! An often heard reaction against this kind of records is 'they should have divided it into more tracks' (see: Edge of Sanity - 'Crimson'). Mostly, this accusation is well-founded, because those long tracks usually contain more than enough different ideas to make them into more songs. For this track, I wouldn't know. The tempo alone is already enough to justify the song being that long. I also feel that the band doesn't leave the same straightout path until the end of the song, so that the end still resembles the beginning of the track very much. Does that mean it is boring? No, not at all. There are more than enough changes in rhythm and in riffs to make this more than a monotonous drive of slow but heavy guitars. This is no more no less Skepticism at its very best. I wonder what this would give live.

Reviewed by Heiko

Review cut/pasted from www.doom-metal.com