First Time Hearing Opeth?

[Raven777]

I'm happy to say that today, June 26 2001, is my 1 year anniversary of hearing Opeth.

It all started when my friend in Canada, Vlad, e-mailed me saying to, and I quote, "Get the fuck on ICQ!!!"

So I went. I gotta say, I had NO knowledge of the metal underground at this time. I disliked death metal. I thought Megadeth's "Countdown To Extinction" was the best thing since sliced bread and that Coroner's "Mental Vortex" was TOO COMPLEX (and this is coming from a King Crimson fan!!)

He started sending me MP3 files. He promised me that he would send Megadeth - Rust In Peace sometime 'soon' so I thought this was it. Instead he told me that this band was "the best band I've ever heard in my life, dude, I couldn't believe them and you won't either."
"Opeth? Who the hell are they?" I wrote back.
"Shut the fuck up and wait for this shit to load!"

So I waited. Big file, I thought. Man, long songs, I hope they're not a cookie cutter prog band or anything.

I told him to leave the transfer going, I'd be back later.

In the evening, the files were finished.
I actually PUT HEADPHONES ON (god, that was out of cowardice, avoiding embarresment.) My grandma was actually in the other room watching T.V. so I didn't want to scare the hell out of her if it was 'death metal bullshit.'

I tried to listen to 'The Moor' but there were too many distractions around. Besides, I was confused why there was no sound for the first 20 seconds or so (duhh!! I think now...)

I found the official Opeth website and just decided to browse it, take a look at the lyrics.
That was my first sign that I was on to something good.
'What the hell,' I thought, 'I'll just listen to it."

I found that the album Vlad sent me was 'Still Life,' so I just put the 'phones on and started to follow along with the lyrics on the site.

I don't have to, nor can I explain, what I went through listening to Opeth for the first time. Of course I hated the vocals at first, I had heard nothing like that growl EVER. I was impressed the hell out of by them. Too much happened to me in that amout of time.

...about 70 minutes later, I was speechless. The only thing I could say after I took of my 'phones was 'Goddamn.' I wrote a mail to Vlad, raving about them like I never had raved before. I was obsessed with this 'new sound', and I thought there were no bands around doing that type of thing. I had to get as much of this new 'stuff' as possible. Within weeks I had heard Morningrise, and had just gotten into .. In Flames & Katatonia...

I have to credit Opeth with opening the gateways for me to a better, more beautiful life, open-mindedness... not to mention exposing me to the underground.

So how about you people out there? What was your first time listening to Opeth?

Happy Anniversary...

 

[Kem]

Cool

I can't remember the exact date I started but it was sometime around April or May last year. I downloaded Face of Melinda and thought WOW. Then someone ICQ'ed me Demon of The Fall...that ending blew me away. Although I couldn't really get into the vocals at first, the more I listened, the more I came to like it and well, the rest is history. The great thing about Opeth (apart from listening to their brilliant music) is that now I've come to appreciate bands that do similar type singing where before I never gave them a chance. So Opeth were like this gateway band too...

Ah they rule

 

[benny]

To sum it all up fast, a friend I talk to from Finland told me about them about a little over a year ago. He told me to get a cd of theirs, any cd because they all ruled. So me trusting him went to CDNOW and thought Morningrise had one of the most interesting covers I have ever seen. So I bought Morningrise, and then shortly after bought all the rest of them at the same time.

 

[defected]

Yea, I bought Morningrise as my first Opeth record a little over a year and a half ago, on the recommendation of a friend. I still never put the cd away. It is constantly spinning in my cd player.

 

[nyleve]

Well, it was about 4 months ago that I decided to try something new. I ordered Still Life and without listening to it bought it ... WAS I DISAPPOINTED!!! I mean I thought about sending it back until I heard the "And I took her by the hand to say ... " part in FOM. I was like, "OK, these guys need another chance" ... really I was scared off by the vocals, I must admit. Everytime the death vocals came on, I was like "STOP DOING THAT!!!"

A week later Still Life became my fave CD of the month ... I was hooked. I still consider it better than BP and MAYH ... it's a beautiful album, very progressive. I think the vocals are VERY cool now, so I am a bit more open minded to death metal now. That kinda got me into Cynic and Amorphis ... everything else seems just a bit too raw for me.

 

[LEJ]

I've already told about my first encounter with Opeth music, but I like to remember that moment, because it was, is and will be a MILESTONE in my life!
Raven777, I find your post really emotional, welcome between us!
The first time I heard about Opeth was in early '96 (more than 5 years!).
I was at my usual music store looking for something new (I already was aware of the underground movement then), and I saw the booklet of a CD with only a flower upon it and no titles or names. There was a Post-It over the booklet and upon it: 'ORCHID - OPHET' (Yes, someone had written Ophet instead of Opeth!)
I DID want to take a listen of such a mysterious album from a definitely unknown band.
'In mist she was standing' blasted into my ears... (Seven Milestones !)... I felt I had found something REALLY special. I didn't want to listen anymore! I stopped the player and bought it.
Later on, at home, I put on my headphones and started a still going on voyage!
In a few days I realized Opeth was to become my fave ever!
Some months later I read on a magazine that this astounding band was to release its second album! I couldn't wait...

That's all!

 

[Opet]

I first heard of Opeth in March last year. (bows to the powers that be for making it so)

Opeth's name itself said something to me. Something like "buy me!" But really, I thought about how "O" is an eye catcher as far as band names go. Anyways, they brought underground metal to my attention. Before that, my favorite bands were all mainstream. After I found Opeth, all the other music seemed like......... a foul dump! LOL Well, maybe not that harsh...but yeah. Most bands just seemed so lame all of a sudden. They lacked so much compared to Opeth.

I quickly found Katatonia after. And once I heard what they had, I pretty much jumped into Death Metal face first. I immediately loved his death vocals. I had heard some black metal vocals before that and didn't like that so much. I like the deeper/slower growls.

Mikael's godly growls

 

[svenske kocken]

The first time I heard about Opeth was back in 1994 in a swedish magazine named Metal Zone where Jon Nödtveidt of Dissection reviewed an early recording of Orchid. The first time I heard them was a year later when Orchid were released, sometimes in 1995. So I´ve been into Opeth for quite some time.

 

[Demiath]

I discovered Opeth.com, completely by accident, during the last days of September last year, quickly got interested and downloaded "Karma". A couple of hours later I ordered "My Arms, Your Hearse" and "Morningrise" from CDON.COM, while at the same time starting a small Opeth discussion in the General Discussion section of the official Theatre of Tragedy forum (which I visited nearly every day back then)....

 

[Dreadfallen]

I first heard Opeth, just before Morningrise was released. The first song for me was Silhouette, then the rest of Orchid...The place was my highschool.
Week after that Morningrise was released and I bought it...

 

[MountainDweller]

Hmm. I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was around January or February of 2000. I really wanted to check out something different, so I had made a list of metal or seemingly dark bands that I wanted to check out by taking a piece of paper and writing down the band's name when I came across an interesting looking CD or band name. Then I'd get on Napster and download away to check them out. I had been eyeing the "Still Life" CD for some time...it had really caught my attention. I think I kept forgetting to check them out when I'd get home, so that's when I finally decided to just take a walk through the store from A to Z and write down the names, Opeth certainly being one of them. In fact, I still have that list with check marks by the ones I was able to find on Napster:

Bauhaus, Cradle of Filth, Christian Death, Emperor, Hammerfall, Iced Earth, Opeth, and Witchery.

I gave a lot of them quite a few listens and was listening quite a bit to the CoF, Emperor, and Witchery tracks I had downloaded. I also checked out bands like In Flames and Children of Bodom. Sometime during all this I downloaded "The Moor" and thought "wow, this is good" and found myself mainly listening to that song over and over. Then I checked out "April Ethereal". I believe I also checked out "Under The Weeping Moon". Soon after, I was the proud owner of an import copy of "Still Life". I believe I bought it in February/early March at the latest. Soon after followed "My Arms, Your Hearse" and days later "Orchid" and "Morningrise". The vocals really didn't take any "getting used to" for me, considering the other bands I had been checking out. If anything, checking out some of the other bands first made me realise how awesome Opeth is. The mix of the harsh and clean vocals and the musicianship impressed me greatly. It was harsh, yet beautiful and I loved it. Most others went pretty much unlistened to, and eventually deleted later when I needed to make space on my computer, and ones I checked out afterwards just couldn't compare.

Still on my search, I downloaded some bands in the "thank you's" of "Still Life" and also bought some of the Century Media comps, where I heard Katatonia and was impressed by "deadhouse" and "Murder". I then bought "discouraged ones" then later "Brave Murder Day/For Funerals To Come" and now I own every album from that one to "last fair deal gone down" (which I'm currently addicted to...funny because upon first [and second and third] listen it didn't impress me too much). heh...I wasn't too impressed with "tonight's decision" when I shelled out the extra money for an import copy last April, but since becoming addicted to "LFDGD", I've listened to it and like it quite a bit now, although there were already a couple of songs I thought were pretty good.

Anyway, that's my story, basically. I wish I had kept all those downloads because I could get the exact dates from them. I only have the Emperor ones now, which dates earliest to the 5th of February. Lately I've been in a big-time mood to check out and experiment with bands I haven't heard, but it's hard to without Napster. Yeah, in my case, Napster really hurt the bands. I only own all five of Opeth's albums because of it.

 

[discouraged1]

Hey,
it's my opeth anniversary too!

My friend has downloaded the one-minute clip from Nectar(it was the mid part with the acoustic guitars) and I was hooked when I heard such playing and the both harsh vocals and clean singing.
That was 2,5 years ago and I've bought Morningrise when I had the chance(I think it was July 1999). I fell in love instantly.
It changed my life forever, I've found such a great band and I bought My Arms in Sept. same year(I was expecting another Morningrise, but no - it was quite shocking when I played it for the 1st time....but after few listens, I liked it very much and loved Opeth even more - TRUE ARTISTS ALWAYS CHANGE !).
Bought Still Life in Feb 2000 and Orchid last Summer.Leaved me breatheless - Still Life was most complete effort, while Orchid is probably the best debut ever.
I've got Blackwater Park a week ago and it's probably the best Opeth record.
2 years of Opeth yet.......I think it will last for a long time....

 

[Duvall]

I first heard OF Opeth on the Candlelight website, while looking for some info on Emperor. The overviews of the albums seemed really positive, and I kept reading sentences like "the best metal outfit in the world." So I was intrigued. But I had been putting off getting a credit card (if you see my bills now, you'll know why). The summer of 1999 I was visiting family in St. Louis and found MAYH, gave it a listen in the store. Rain, ok. Piano, good. Voice..ooh, heavy. So I skipped ahead to get a feel for the whole thing (family members prodding me to go).. heard a chunk of Creedence, and Epilogue, and figured out the basic structure of the concept album (the whole last-line title thing). $10.99 US? Sure. So I picked it up, and fell in love with it. It got more play than anything I bought that year. I later found Morningrise for $30+ CAD at a local store, ordered Orchid, and bought the others as they came out..
Having a classical music background has always led me to more melodic music, which might be why I still listen to the Xytras supplemental CD that came with Samael's Passage more than the metal album... So Opeth opened a new door for me, and I can't say that they've ever disappointed...

 

[HoserHellspawn]

It was the summer of '99. I was in Prince George, B.C., where the streets were polluted and the air more so. My sanctuary came in the form of a middle-class home in one of the nicer parts of town. There lived the cousins of a close friend of mine, who I had travelled up there with, and their home became my residence for the week. The boys all had one thing in common (besides the family relations): Metal. I was already somewhat of a metalhead upon my arrival and knew that all week long my ears were going to be bled by the new and old and obscure forms of death metal that were collected there, and by a different form of music totally new (and somewhat terrifying to me): Black metal.

But, one quiet afternoon, one CD in particular caught my attention. It may have been the cover photo, which I thought was beautiful and unique, it may have been the name, which seemed to have a higher elegance than, say, "Carcass", "Suffocation" or "Cannibal Corpse"... but I think it was probably the sticker that said "EXTREME PROGRESSIVE METAL from the swedish gods. 66 minutes of the best metal you will ever hear" (or something to that effect).

It was Morningrise. And it was good.

I played approximately 4 minutes of the first track and made the decision that upon my arrival home I would purchase this CD by this band, "Opeth". Of course... I couldn't find it. I did, however, find MAYH and bought it anyways, and grabbed Morningrise and Orchid a week later. After a very... unfortunate New Years, I went home after work one day and listened to Morningrise from start to finish lying in the dark and it became my favourite record, and my Opethianess was full-fledged. They have been my favourite band since.

 

[Moose]

The first time I heard Opeth was a few years ago when a scripture teacher at my school told me they were his favourite band. He and I shared similar musical interests (namely Dream Theater) so I figured he probably wasn't wrong.
I went home and downloaded Godhead's Lament from the Aversion Online website. The first things I noticed when I heard it was that this was no ordinary band, their use of harmonies, dynamics and minor chords in the first few bars were something quite different. The vocals, heavy growling, had something distinct to them, which I had not heard before. The clean acoustic part came and I thought then "this band is awesome". I downloaded some more MP3s, and a few weeks later purchased Morningrise.
Opeth are truly something rare.