Moonlapse said:
I don't really understand what makes their newer stuff more predictable. If anything, it was the first two albums that sounded almost exactly alike, and were direct derivatives from the then-blossoming Gothenburg scene.
The newer stuff is as distanced from the current metal scene as you can hope to get. I've yet to hear a band that sounds anything like Ghost Reveries does.
That's because you've probably never heard any of Mike Patton's assorted rock albums. There's a really mean Faith No More / Mike Patton on the vocals going on in Ghost Reveries, particularly on the first song. They've definitely taken a more proggish approach. That's not a bad thing. Ghost of Perdition is a great song, and I like Harlequinn Forest.
However, that being said, I have no idea how they can write a song like Baying of Hounds, considering they were so good at writing interesting lengthy songs. I think they have ideas for songs that fit around the 4-5 minute mark, and extend them to 10-12 minutes; as a result, it seems like the songs drag on forever. Which wasn't the case in their earlier albums. Black Rose Immortal lasts like, what, 18-20 minutes? You scarcely notice it. The arrangements per se aren't predictable, but after listening to the same 3 riffs for 3 minutes over and over, I mean, I could bust out my old punk albums and at least there will be some sort of song distinction every 3 minutes (or 30 seconds in the case of Agnostic Front hehe).
What I don't like is that their style doesn't seem to fit that really huge length anymore, and while their musicianship has kept growing, they need to realize that 10-15 minute songs don't work for every sound you come up with (think of My Arms, Your Hearse; they went with shorter songs that album, a direction they should have stayed on).
That being said, I think Opeth, other than the very notable exception of Damnation, hasn't released anything mind blowing since Morningrise. Their albums since have all been very good (well, Deliverance was just good, but Damnation balanced it out).
I might be biased, I dunno. I like Opeth a lot, but I've been listening to Enslaved for a long time, and for me that's a standard that even Opeth has a hard time meeting. Opeth's sound evolves but it doesn't change per se every album; pick up Enslaved's last three albums, and you'll be like, holy shit, what the fuck is going on here!? Which actually is what I felt about Ghost of Perdition; I think after that Ghost Reveries sort of dragged along. If you're going to go nuts, do it. If you do it for one song and then go right back to Deliverance (with an intermission at Harlequinn Forest), the album will drag on and become a little predictable because we've heard it before.
But keep in mind this criticism is precisely because we hold Opeth to a higher standard than most bands, one that Opeth themselves set; if this had been a new band, we'd be pretty impressed. But when you release great albums, everything you do will be in the shadow of that (think of Dark Tranquility, how they've never come close to equaling The Gallery).
