UMUR
"Into the Suction of Blue / Withdrawn" is an EP release by Finnish thrash/death metal act Sceptical Schizo. The EP was independently released in June 1992 and follows the release of no less than four demo recordings which were released in the years 1989-1991. Sceptical Schizo formed in 1988 under the Epidemic monicker but changed their name to Sceptical Schizo later the same year. They operated under the Sceptical Schizo band name until 1993 when they changed their name to Lavra.
The four demos preceding this 2 tracks, 11:50 minutes long EP were all in a brutal thrash metal style, but the last two demos "Danse Macabre" (August 1990) and especially "The Four Seasons" (February 1991) saw Sceptical Schizo experiment with their sound and it was audible that the band were on a musical journey which was far from over. Listening to "Into the Suction of Blue / Withdrawn" that becomes even more clear, because Sceptical Schizo are now no longer playing thrash metal but instead perform a weird and experimental/avant-garde death-doom metal style (some sections of "Withdrawn" can even be labelled funeral doom metal and there´s a slow and heavy death´n´roll touch here and there too) with both growling vocals and some murky gothic type male clean vocals. I´m honestly not sure how to describe this correctly, but it´s certainly both odd and unconventional (the use of clarinet and keyboards are quite unusual in the way they are used here). Maybe a band like the French in Supuration/SUP is a valid reference, but this is actually pretty unique for the time.
The sound production is decent but also unpolished and a bit murky. It´s suits the aestethics of the music pretty well though. "Into the Suction of Blue / Withdrawn" has come as a complete surprise to me after listening to Sceptical Schizo´s demos. Nothing on those demos (even though the last two did feature a more experimnetal edge) could have prepared me for what "Into the Suction of Blue / Withdrawn" contains. I´m confused but in a good way and the odd avant-garde death-doom metal style of "Into the Suction of Blue / Withdrawn" is certainly more interesting and accomplished than anything Sceptical Schizo had put out before. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.
