Discovering Opeth

[sighofsummer]

So here's my story. I was browsing thru a guitar magazine in HMV (Cardiff) just looking at some of the latest stuff (try to keep myself up to date). It was the year 2001 and i got tired of listening to Dream Theater. DT was like my fav since 1999. I needed something more. I needed death metal. I was going back to my roots but just didnt want to hear the same ol thing. I was lost

I stumbled across this Laney ad. in the guitar magazine which featured Mik and Peter infront of these amplifiers and there it was....the Opeth logo at the bottom of the page with the Still Life album cover next to it....and there it was, 3 words i would never forget til today...PROGRESSIVE DEATH METAL.

I got really excited and bought the album straight away not knowing what the hell was on this cd. I questioned my decision all the way home. Should I have listened to this before buying it? Is this really good? Am i gonna regret this? Anyway, i decided that if i didnt like it, i would return it the next day and get a full refund (I love the UK )

Ok, so i got home and put the cd on. I started frowning when i heard the long and ever so disturbing intro of The Moor. At that point i thought, oh shit im definitely not going to like this. The acoustic guitars kick in and im like, hey this is alright and then...yes you guessed it, all hell broke loose. It was fuckin unbelievable. I was smiling throughout the whole track. Ok basically, the whole album rocked I was instantly hooked and after a week of listening to Still Life, i went out and bought the rest of the albums. I have been a loyal fan ever since.

So whats your story Opethians?

 

[~random~]

Before I was even into metal I was in this shitty band with some mates (we covered Smells Like Teen Spirit ) and our drummer brought aroung Lamentations. I sat and watched unenthusiatically. Listened to Masters Apprentices and was like, yeah, ok. Then my friend pointed to the screen and said "You'll like this" and suddenly mike breaks into the clean vocals, the song slows down and gets really dark and atmospheric. I was quite blown away. I have never liked a band as much as Opeth.

 

[Crackfare]

this is my story. I found a song on the internet called "Circle of Tyrants" by Opeth. First off, i didnt know it was a cover song, and second, I really wasnt impressed. Later on, I started looking into Opeth, and some guy was talking about the song Blackwater Park, saying it was a masterpiece. I listened to the song, and said "Who the hell are these guys???" After that, I saw their brilliance, and to this day, is the only band in which Ive listened to every one of their songs.

 

[still day]

First off, I'm not a metalhead by any stretch of the imagination, however I was raised on sabbath, zepplin, and rush..way back when..I spent the better part of the 80's when metal was flourishing, listening to atmosphericly avante garde jazz stuff off the ECM label like Terje Rypdal and Ralph Towner/Oregon as an example. I've since grown musically to the point where I listen to an eclectic mix of a wide variety of styles and taste in music....I'm not pigeon-holed into any one genre...as long as sound cool to me, I care not wrt the source. I played guitar as a teenage thru my early 20's then for some stupid reason gave it up until the last 5 or 6 years or so, where I've gotten back into playing, so lately most but not all of the stuff I listen to is guitar based...and really good guitar by my standard at that...I seek albums with good guitar tone and taste.
To be quite honest, it's a little fuzzy how I recently found out about Opeth...it was an Internet thing....hopscotching around music/guitar forum and such, somewhere Opeth popped up and going thru my mp3 folder...low and behold there was one labeled Opeth...I opened it up and it was BWP and track 01 was Still Day...I sat mesmerised as the chorus started and a tear trickled down my cheek and I thought "My God, this is powerful, emotional, good, good stuff here". Then the second 01 track came up: The Leper Affinity, and I thought "What the hell is this?"...I listened somewhat gobsmacked and by the beautiful piano outro, I knew there was something special here, even though the cookie monster vocals were an inital turn off.
I continued to listen to the whole BWP album and by the end, I was transfixed with adulation for this band..I think their songs really draw you in with contrast of power and beauty and it's quite hard to deny that Opeth has found something very special. And since, well, I guess I've become a Opeth Junky like the rest of you lot!!!!!

 

[Johan]

I was hanging at my local cd store one afternoon after high school... Found the eye-catching orchid cover on the "news" wall and decided to have a listen in the store. And it was love at first listen...

 

[FRUGiHOYi]

After Blackwater Park came out, I kept seeing people talk about Opeth on the internet, so I went on a P2P program and downloaded The Night And The Silent Water and the rest is history. It was exactly the kind of music I was looking for.

 

[FullMetalCornflake]

Just reading your post, Sighofsummer, made me play still life right now. Good shit...

There used to be a record store right alongside my apartment building. They've since torn down the record store and built a drug store in it's place. Back when BWP was released, I was listening to pretty shitty music (american metal and cradle of filth) and while haunting the shop I noticed the BWP CD. I never heard of band, the artwork was OK, but something about it just caught my attention. I didn't have internet back then and the record store wasn't the kind that let you listen to a record before you bought it, so I just bought it blindly. I never buy records blindly.

I listened to it once and was intrigued. Listened to it a few more times and I was hooked...

the rest is history...

 

[FRUGiHOYi]

Just reading your post, Sighofsummer, made me play still life right now. Good shit...

Haha, me too.

 

[BloodSword]

I hate the term "MetalHead." I listen to what I believe to be excellent music. Actually, Porcupine Tree (Steven Wilson) turned me on to Opeth. That being said, Opeth are a special band and possess incredible talent. I absolutely enjoy most of their work. But, they didn't invent the fuckin' wheel. Some band's were doing the hard/mellow stucture long before Opeth (Novembers Doom) Imo, Opeth took that arrranging skill to a much better level. Opeth are certainly one of the most important band's in Metal today.

 

[cheechonaleash]

I first discovered Opeth shortly after the release of Deliverance. I went into the local CD shop and was browsing around... and was lured in by a couple of stickers on the wrapper saying things such as "Metal's most brilliant band" and "65 minutes of music". I thought to myself, "I like metal" and "65 minutes seems pretty decent", I flipped the case to find a disc that only contained 6 songs... and I was intrigued even further. I purchased the album and I didn't even listen to the whole thing. I thought it was absolute garbage. The CD was filed away, and not removed from that spot until some time later. Awhile passed, and in my ongoing quest for new, good music, I stumbled upon a track called "Harvest". I instantly loved this song from the first time I heard it. This led me to try to find other songs to hear... next came Demon of the Fall. Another love at first listen song. Shortly after, I went to college and met a girl that I became friends with... this friend introduced me to Opeth again... for the first time, so to speak. She lent me My Arms, Your Hearse and Damnation... and I was hooked... I suddenly remembered that I had an album by these Opeth guys... found it, played it, loved it. Got the rest of the catalogue shortly there after. Look forward to new stuff

 

[N-MAYH]

It was in 2001 or 2002 when my gf sent me demon... i loved it, especially the accoustic parts... and then i stopped for a bit then my friend phil asked me if i liked opeth like june last year, then it was nonstop listening, now its less often but still my #1 band

 

[foodforthegods]

I discovered opeth when I've got lamentation. I had heard a lot of good things about them so I just pick it up. I first hear windowpane. I was like...wow that's nice I love his voice. Then I start skipping tracks to see what's the heavy side I'Ve heard so much. When I got to Master Apprentices I was on the ground. I was like: my god i need to share it with my friends.

 

[tchocky]

Back in 2001 just after Blackwater Park had just been released, a friend of mine on a forum sent me a song of theirs which was the song Blackwater Park. I was blown away, never looked back since. I was listening to shit like Pearl Jam and Nirvana and then WHAM! Opeth came into my life and I said goodbye to my shitty grunger life.

 

[Travis]

My Arms, Your Hearse

 

[Pethical]

in 2001 i got a compilation cd with a 5 minute edit of the beginning of drapery. i thought it was ok but i wasn't blown away or anything. a few weeks later i was on the net and downloaded a bootleg of dotf randomly and the rest is history

 

[IamReptar]

Randomly searched google video for Pro Metal. The Drapery Falls video from Lamentation comes up. After sitting there listening/watching the same video for a good 2 hours, without any words, I proceeded to go buy the DVD. It consumed the rest of the day. Just as this band has consumed my life since then.

 

[dorian gray]

So here's my story......

Interesting that your first album was Still Life. When I picked it up in '03, I already had most of their albums and Still Life was a difficult find. I would guess most Opeth fans were introduced to the band through the fairly widespread media coverage that Blackwater Park received.

 

[actionfan32]

Hmm, well I got into metal in February 2001, when I was eleven years old. A couple years later, in June 2003, I heard about Opeth and I checked out a few of their songs including Demon Of the Fall and Blackwater Park, but unfortunately at the time I was only thirteen and all the bands I listened to were bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, etc., so the long songs, lack of verse-chorus structure, etc. kind of turned me away from Opeth.

Finally, I got into them another couple of years later, in early Spring 2005. Right around that time I first heard about Sounds of the Underground, and a lot of bands that were on it, like Opeth and SYL, as well as others like Nevermore, were just starting to get popular over here. So basically in early April 2005 right as I was discovering bands like SYL, I started listening to Opeth again, and since then they've becoming one of my favorite bands. My first album was Blackwater Park, which I got in June or July, and then I saw them on Sounds of the Underground (got BWP signed ) and then again, this time on a headlining tour, in March this year.

And to this day I still wish I had started listening to them earlier, but like I said I was only thirteen when I first heard them, I didn't have the attention span or appreciation for deep, beautiful music like that at the time (which isn't really a surprise, most 13-year-olds don't care about that sort of stuff).

 

[Manbient]

early 1999. Bought MAYH, Morningrise, and Orchid after reading a few absolute rave reviews on the band. Did NOT see the big deal about the band for a couple months. Summer rolls around, i have this gigantic old, run down house to myself (was renting it with my teammates... no heaters and squirrels in the house with us), and i put on Morningrise and went to bed. Woke up to the "you... sleep... in..." part of TNATSW in a cold sweat, and sat there for the rest of the CD in the dark in complete awe. To this day one of the best experiences i've had with music. Morningrise remained my favorite album for about 5 years.