Wilytank Today, we have Skepticism once again. This time, they release this 'Aes' EP featuring a single 28 minute long song. Skepticism aren't well known for making songs THIS long; but with a funeral doom metal band, it was inevitable. You know what else it was? Pretty awesome, that's what.

The beginning is calm with soft sounding guitars and atmospheric keyboards and drums already playing the main beat. The soft guitar and the not so soft (though somehow not that heavy) funeral doom chugging guitar play together throughout the song to create a really nice sorrowful harmony. The music goes on and transitions steadily from variation to variation. 4:51 marks the biggest change so far with the metal guitar going into faster steady strums not held down. During this section, the keyboards kinda go out on their own to paint their own natural and beautiful picture. This transition is broken around the 7 minute mark with the guitar switching to some sweet sounding melodic playing eventually to be joined by the metal rhythm guitar and keyboards. This melodic lead guitar pretty much replaced the soft sounding lead guitar that was present before, but it does switch back to the soft guitar at the 10 minute mark of this song.

After the 12:30 mark, the song begins to get heavier sounding with the guitar riffs getting heavier and drums getting echoy. The guitars and keyboards play the same notes during this movement in a rhythmic dance with the drums. When this movement ends, the song gets quiet again with the drums going into a steady beat once again, guitars becoming soft, and keyboards being the main generator of the atmosphere. Eventually, the guitars begin to get tentatively more prominent, but maintaining a softer side. Up to the 19:40 mark, the keyboards have sounded like violins. Beyond that point, they break into a more atmospheric, spacey sound with the heavy rhythm guitar becoming heavy once again and the lead guitar returning to the soft strumming. By the late end of the 21 minute mark, the lead guitar goes into a more electric sounding lead going off into something of a slow solo. When it ends, the song gets heavier as it begins it's outro climax. The barely recognizable bass becomes a little heavier. The lead guitar transitions back to the soft sound. When the song finally reaches it's final stretch, the heavy instruments back off to let the soft lead guitar, drums, and quieter keyboards finish.

I love how light the lyrics are. It's like Matti is singing about slow flight:

"mountains become heavy like dust, towers will stand like smoke, ages tighten to become aes, entering the levitation, feet would crave for solid ground, lost in vast forbidden ground, fell from clouds on sacred ground, in the mills of thought are being ground..."

This song is light as a feather but heavy as a brick, giving the perfect accompaniment to the words in this song. The slightly cleaner production also helps. Skepticism fans need not be skeptical about Skepticism doing a 28 minute long song. They've pulled it off well.