Worried ? Mmmpsssss sss dh dhahahahahaha !!!..
Blackwater Park is easily the most visual and surreal work they've done, in fact, it should be a concept album no matter what Mikael says ! The most intense emotions, the greatest insight into the human mind, the best song structures - not because they have fewer riffs, but because, unlike Morningrise, every riff is strictly to the point. I believe there is a purpose in including these similar chordal passages in Drapery (a truly surreal experience, like a submersion into something unknown - the mind of a lost person ?), Dirge (one of my favourite tracks, he he he, there you have it) and the title track. It feels like a story. Blackwater Park is present in each of the songs, and the brilliant title track finally brings us inside, show us a way to escape, and leaves us hanging in the end, so we can figure out our own interpretations of what really happened. Sort of a Twin Peaks-like ending... Blackwater Park should be a David Lynch movie, in fact - the different unconnected stories, the multiple narrators, blood, murders and hidden truths; and above it all - a mystic place which is reflected in the people's minds, in an incomprehensible way. The artwork helps too...
I feel that BP will soon replace Still Life as my favourite Opeth album. Still Life has the best musical material of all their albums, but BP is really unique. They have finally found a balance between what to show and what to hint at in the music, and what not to include at all. All the previous albums had some redundant passages, as epitomized on Morningrise (my opinion, of course). No such stuff here - everything flows naturally.
I heard the Drapery and Dirge samples too, before getting the whole thing, and I was ready to become disappointed, but the band has overcome the surface of their music and presented us the depth only. This can be their rebirth, I hope, and a first step into something even more monumental and deep.
D Mullholand, a dead composer
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NP: Shostakovich - Symphony N 4