| Stormcrowfleet | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Studio album by Skepticism | ||
| Released | 1995 | |
| Genre | Funeral Doom Metal
length = 57:19 | |
| Label | Red Stream | |
| Producer | Skepticism | |
| Skepticism chronology | ||
| Aeothe Kaear (1994) |
Stormcrowfleet (1995) |
Ethere (1997) |
Stormcrowfleet is the debut album of the Finnish funeral doom band Skepticism. It was released in 1995.
History[]
The band was founded in 1991, and was awarded a record deal with American independent label Red Stream, Inc. in 1993 after the release of their demo tape Aeothe Kaear. The band subsequently recorded three new pieces and rearranged three songs from the demo.[1]
As the decisive moment in their genesis, keyboardist Eero Pöyry recalled his change from guitar to keyboard along with the consideration of how the instrument should be integrated into the sound of the band from then on. Following the idea of playing the keyboard as a synthetic organ, drummer Lasse Pelkonen also adapted his equipment and playing style. From then on, among other things, he used felt mallets instead of the drumsticks usually present in heavy metal. In another interview, he described that and how the band found an independent sacred sound as an intuitive process.
"The instrument changes could be described as organic. We never had an explicit plan on how we should sound or what we should do. We were and are working on intuition. It took us a year to find our sound and our roles in creating it. So I would not say we were displeased with our previous sound - we were just incomplete with it."[2]
Meanwhile, the daily rehearsal with the idea to set itself apart from classic metal bands was significant for the phase of the band. They channeled ideas and influences of their previous musical career and their musical socialization in the creation of the album to a creative basic structure, which after Pöyry could be regarded as the basis of their further work. The band acted with the bass player J. Korpihete, who did not become part of the band. Pöyry expressly described Korpihete as a "session member" whose participation included an integration into the design process of the album in addition to the playing of the instrument, but was only a temporary solution.[3]
The musical coordinates of Stormcrowfleet are the same as those that will return in the band's subsequent albums: very slow and heavy riffs, generally supported by a carpet of keyboards (often close to the sound of a pipe organ); particularly cavernous, distant and unintelligible grunt voice; martial battery that recalls a funeral march (what will become the typical percussion style of the genre), with simple and slow rhythms but not trivial or repetitive; melodies that recall medieval music; very dark atmospheres but without violent emotions, almost relaxing.
The latter is an element particularly present in the album, where subsequent albums will tend to introduce greater tension (although always controlled). Stormcrowfleet is in particular the metal album closest to ambient music, probably also due to the decidedly lo-fi recording: the instruments tend to blend together, at times touching the fusion in a single sound flow. The texts, as already happened with Thergothon, are suggestive and impersonal, and focus mainly on images of nature.
Artwork[]
As with some of Skepticism's later releases, the cover of the album was illustrated by the close-up of an object, which cannot be clearly identified in the picture alone, unlike the pictures of Rauch on Farmakon or a suit on Ordeal used later. The photographs of branches and water surfaces in the same color used in the interior of the booklet indicate a corresponding object. The picture shows shapes in reddish to yellow-orange coloring on a black background. The lyrics for the songs are printed inside the booklet. The back cover of the album illustrates the photo of the reflections of a water surface. The pictures were all selected by the band under the self-designation as Lihtede Group. The graphic processing was carried out by Arts Industria.
Release[]
Stromcrowfleet was first released via Red Stream in 1995, initially the album's release was limited to a CD format. The album was first released with six separate tracks and a playing time of 57:19 minutes. No changes were made to this volume of the album in later editions and bonus material was also not added.
The first re-releases of the album kept the CD format. The album was first released in a vinyl version in 2018 by Svart Records. In 2017, the band bought the master tapes and was looking for a cooperation partner and a studio to release the recordings in vinyl format for the first time. For the 2018 release as a double vinyl, the tapes were remixed in Astia studios with high-quality analog technology, but the band made no changes to the original recordings of the songs. In meetings, the revision was mentioned as a significant improvement in sound quality.
Further reissues have been made by various labels such as Russian label Irond Ltd. and British label Peaceville Records.
Legacy[]
The album is one of the cornerstones of funeral doom metal and considered by many to be the most classic in the genre. The album was released just a year after the forefather of funeral doom (Thergothon's Stream from the Heavens) and in the same year as Tragedies by the Norwegian band Funeral, which will take its name from the genre. It should be noted that within the original "triad" of Nordic funeral doom, Skepticism is the only surviving band: Thergothon, in fact, broke up, while Funeral moved away from the genre.
Stormcrowfleet would be ranked #25 on Decibel Magazine's "Top 100 Doom Metal Albums of All Time"[4] and #21 on Loudwire's "Top 25 Doom Metal Albums of All Time".[5] Stormcrowfleet would be inducted into the Decibel Magazine Hall of Fame in the publication's 110th issue in 2014.[6]
Track listing[]
- 1. Sign of a Storm (10:13)
- 2. Pouring (8:48)
- 3. By Silent Wings (7:06)
- 4. The Rising of The Flames (11:31)
- 5. The Gallant Crow (7:39)
- 6. The Everdargreen (12:15)
Personnel[]
- Matti Tilaeus - Vocals
- Jani Kekarainen - Guitar
- Eero Pöyry - Keyboards
- Lasse Pelkonen - Drums
- J. Korpihete - Bass