no country for old wainds
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Albums currently kicking your ass
- Thread starter The Ozzman
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suckerleaf
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Phylactery
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Morningrise is their best IMO, sure the songwriting is a mess overall, but it has the best individual moments I think. Parts of it remind me of Final Fantasy 7.
Enslaved - Vikingligr Veldi
This is sometimes overlooked in terms of the Norwegian scene I've noticed, but for me it is among the elite.
Yeah, that's their best album. I really like everything they did through Damnation though. After that it's spotty..
Jill Funerus is in the ICU apparently. She was in for surgery related to her cancer battle and took a turn for the worse..
Artizan
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TechnicalBarbarity
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It's easily the best release with the Rhapsody name on it if you ask me. Starapoli just can't match Turilli for songwriting, scope and skill. Like him or laugh at him, but Turilli is reaching new levels with his writing and arrangements. A great talent. It's also a lot less cheesy than the sword and sorcery schtick of old.
Blackwater Park was their 'Black Album' basically. Steven Wilson was their Bob Rock.
Edit: And I mean this in a negative sense.
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Opeth's first two albums are actually kind of neat and have a unique sound. My Arms, Your Hearse has the distinction of having the best album title in their entire discography (which is unfortunately not a merit of Opeth's creativity as it is ripped directly from another source), and has some ambitious moments on it.
Other than that, they're one of the most banal bands that I've ever heard.
Other than that, they're one of the most banal bands that I've ever heard.
Also, it's a little known fact that Blackwater Park is the name of the main estate in Wilkie Collins's 1860s masterpiece novel 'The Woman in White'. I think there was a 70s prog band who were also called Blackwater Park, which is where Opeth got the name from, but I presume this prog band were fans of Wilkie Collins. The curious part of all this is that, while Collins was massively famous during the Victorian era and basically besties with Dickens, he's really not that well known today. Which is a pity because 'The Woman in White' is a haunting classic!
Vilden
From the holy kingdom of Harmonia
I've always loved this album, very emotional and depressing. Too bad they never really made anything nearly as good after this imo.
EspaDa
Damage Case
SymbolicDeath666
Hell's Guardian
no country for old wainds
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all the first five opeth albums are pretty 'unique', tonally speaking, and each quite different from one another too - even stuff that opeth fans recommend as similar doesn't tend to hit the same spot in my experience. ORCHID is more of a hushed moonlight forest album or w/e, MORNINGRISE is more for autumn mornings, but both are riff salads that may as well have been structured using a RNG. there are some truly abysmal passages on those alongside the good stuff ('nectar' is a shitty song for example, as is half of the nonsensically long 'black rose immortal'), but they're probably the most appealing aesthetically - more organic+otherworldly and less navel-gazing than what followed.
MY ARMS YOUR HEARSE is their most intense, haunting and passionate record, and among the most structurally coherent with proper arcs of tension/release - it's the only one with several moments that give me shivers even today. it's hardly a flawless masterpiece or anything but definitely my favourite. something always bothered me about STILL LIFE, always felt very self-indulgent and overwrought somehow, i'd have to listen again to pinpoint what i mean in more detail, it's been a long time. it has its moments in any case, and it's not too far from MAYH stylistically.
BLACKWATER PARK tones that issue down but kinda goes the other way into grey blandness, with by far the least emotionally charged clean-vocalled sections they'd had up to that point, but it's still aight in a wintery melancholy kinda way--there just isn't the same rawness of feeling there anymore. DELIVERANCE and DAMNATION were even blander but also had some of their least cringey songwriting, i never minded nor cared about either particularly. lost interest in them after that, couldn't get into the next couple records at all.
not sure if yall are aware but not unlike MDB they actually began playing old school doom-death of sorts, their demos are fucking horribly produced though lol, not in a good way. they also covered 'circle of the tyrants' and 'remember tomorrow' which are both great choices in my book, not that they come close to beating the originals but y'know.
MY ARMS YOUR HEARSE is their most intense, haunting and passionate record, and among the most structurally coherent with proper arcs of tension/release - it's the only one with several moments that give me shivers even today. it's hardly a flawless masterpiece or anything but definitely my favourite. something always bothered me about STILL LIFE, always felt very self-indulgent and overwrought somehow, i'd have to listen again to pinpoint what i mean in more detail, it's been a long time. it has its moments in any case, and it's not too far from MAYH stylistically.
BLACKWATER PARK tones that issue down but kinda goes the other way into grey blandness, with by far the least emotionally charged clean-vocalled sections they'd had up to that point, but it's still aight in a wintery melancholy kinda way--there just isn't the same rawness of feeling there anymore. DELIVERANCE and DAMNATION were even blander but also had some of their least cringey songwriting, i never minded nor cared about either particularly. lost interest in them after that, couldn't get into the next couple records at all.
not sure if yall are aware but not unlike MDB they actually began playing old school doom-death of sorts, their demos are fucking horribly produced though lol, not in a good way. they also covered 'circle of the tyrants' and 'remember tomorrow' which are both great choices in my book, not that they come close to beating the originals but y'know.
This is more or less my assessment too. People were obsessed with Opeth around here, getting the O tattooed on their personages etc. It was out of control. I really liked Opeth but never to the extent of most people. I was in awe of the scope and musicianship but the proggy parts were less appealing to me. I think you underrate 'Still Life', which to me is quite a landmark in metal. At least 'The Moor' is.
'Blackwater Park' is a lot less interesting to me and I'm surprised it became their breakthrough album of sorts. Still, I really respect them as a band (back in the day). Just so original and different. Certainly back in 1999 there wasn't much like 'Still Life' on the market, that's for sure. These days everyone plays the heavy part/soft part and it's a part of the metal landscape, but it's easy to forget that once upon a time it really wasn't like that at all.
I remember when people used to get into stupid arguments about Opeth and say that Agalloch ripped them off, even though the two are pretty different.
Master_Yoda77
Juggalo
Mirror of Deception are one of those great doom bands that I have yet to listen to. Same with Internal Void.
JontRevolting
FALSE ARREST! FALSE ARREST!
Oblivious Maximus
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