As no first post would go, I will attempt to provide my personal opinions about that band, as i have, within the last month finally received the last of my Opeth music collection, Morningrise. This post is being set forth, not only to present my views (the views of one who is both very respectful of all, and i mean ALL, music but does not have any sort of deep love for death/dark... metal), but also to put forth a new mindset.
That is: I will try to put Opeth into a perspective from someone who generally avoids the sound "death metal", for lack of a more generic name.
I hail from Cape Cod Massachusetts on the eastern part of the US. I grew up with music in my house as early as in my mother's womb when she sang her own material and also introduced me to her personal favorites, ranging from female vocalists/songwriters like Natalie Cole and Bonnie Rait to the pop rock bands/artists of the 70s and 80s like Fleetwood Mac and Bryan Adams. While growing up, that is what I started with, and I'm happy to say I have expanded, because while the narrow musical span of my parents was not boring or void of talent, I felt at the time there was always a bit more to music than what I'd heard.
Without going through my entire history, it can be summed up as a collection of many varrying interests, and not only in music of course. Being born in 1985, my real deep delving into music was not really accomplished until around 93. where does Opeth come in? ...um around 2001 actually. I knoq it's sad, but I might have thought less of a lot other bands if I had discovered the band earlier. A great friend to me sophmore year in High School, Pete, "introduced" me to metal. I "" that word because, during my adventures, much metal had already been given to my ears. But the sentence means more than it seems. In the B.P. (Before Pete) days, the metal, I thought was metal, was actually a pop representation of metal. something britney fans could listen to without too much complaining. It came in various non-metal forms such as bands like Fuel (clearly a standard rock band), System of a Down (what we now call Nu-Metal), Korn (despite their Helmet-esque crapiness, their songwriting appealed to me) Stain'd (which was just depressing shit to me, but I enjoyed it for a few months, and something you might not expect on the list...Emperor.
Emperor, I wasn't to big in, but I knew they were talented and could actually play. Anyway, I wasn't deep into them, and had little interest in them beyond the brilliant "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk".
Little did I know, there was a much larger metal world out there with much more inside it. Among the bands I was introduced to and grew to love (In Flames, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Anathema) there was this obscure little band called Opeth, that everyone of his friends seemed to don in shirts and other accessories and growl the name incessantly during their daily conversations.
So, with other dark metal bands I had previously come across, including the obvious Emperor, and another band I absolutely despise, Cradle of Filth, I was more than expectedly a bit skeptical. It was not until I got a job, during the wane of my junior year, that I had decided to take myself up on the idea of introducing myself to the band with their new CD (four months released), Deliverance. It was not as rough a ride as I had expected. Of course the vocals were something of a new experience, and I didn't welcome them all to kindly, but the music on Deliverance was just the kind of Tool meets Camel feeling I had always imagined metal to aspire to be.
There were no magic buttons to push as far as Opeth was concerned. I could tell the band was playing the way they had always felt, and the talent and emotion filling each movement proved their devotion to REAL MUSIC, in my eyes. Just two days later, another trip to Best Buy gave me Damnation. Now Damnation was a haven to me at the time, considering my disapproval for the throaty, vocal passages of Deliverance (it didn't bother me too greatly, considering vocals on Deliv. seemed to either blend in or become drowned out by the music). I had a few pre-samplings of Damnation through the interludes given in the works: Deliverance (1:15), Masters Apprentices (5:20), as well as the whole of A Fair Judgement.
How did these two albums compare to me?
Deliverance, I grew to enjoy, mostly because of Masters Apprentices and A Fair Judgement. Looking back on the cd as a whole, I can really see a big change from the earlier days. I rate this one number three, considering Opeth's entire collection, only outdone by Still Life and Blackwater Park.
Damnation was a gem to me when I was getting to know the band. To fans, it seemed a dissapintment to be mostly devoid of any metal (with the exception of passages in Closure), but to me, it was a perfect represntation, a more welcoming introduction to a band, I would have been less interested in if I had only listened to Deliverance. It showed me this (still mysterious) Opeth, had something original and special.
After that senior year had pulled up sped away and I gave my goodbyes to Pete and our times together. And it really wasnt until october 2003 when I decided to retrieve more Opeth. I had read numerous review online claiming some records to be harder than others, but I just wanted to listen to the goddam music, so I decided to find myself some more Opeth, this time, it was Still Life. I was intrigued by the plot someone had laid down on some fansite, and decided to search for it. Unfortunately my search landed me in my chair, downloading the tracks in the worst way from the internet. Why? I couldn't find the cd. It was only actually until a couple days ago I had found out that the cd was released on Peaceville (Anathema, My Dying Bride, Doom, etc.) and was no longer to be reprinted. more on that later.
So I ended up with all the tracks neatly set on a nice burned cd ready to play. let me say out of turn, that the end of serenity painted death, i originally thought to be the fault of the filesharer clipping the track, however, now knowing the true intent makes it all the much cooler and genius. My prayers are now directed to Opeth. Still Life was a dream come true to the music listener. It fused more styles than I could count during it's runtime. Needless to say it was, and still is, my favorite album (despite the sure valid opinions of others). The only regret I had was that i couldn't find the damn thing anywhere. The Moor, as someone wrote on this forum and I wish to paraphrase, is quite possibly one of the greatest pieces of music ever recorded. A lot of people pass Still Life (and to a lesser extent BP) off as being too prog. Aside from that as being a stupid remark, prog metal is way not the righ "label" to have given a band as talented as Opeth. Though by definition they are prog, they do not follow the somewhat ugly connotations prefaced by the progressive movement, and if they ever were just a bit too progressive, their grace covers it up nicely.
After Still Life came to me, I had it in mind that the three records I had sufficed enough to indentify the sound of a band, a band i grew to absolutely love. The next cd, My Arms Your Hearse, completely skewed forever my taking any serious talent as "indetifiable". MAYH was a bit tough to get used to, mainly because, so far my experiences with the band had been extremely widely varied and experimental. I got the hang of it shortly after I bought the next addition, the highly talked about Blackwater Park. Truly, I couldn't see what everyone was talking about until about a month of listening to the thing. But I soon came to realize that Parts like Bleak and Dirge For November could not, by any means, be reproduced with the same energy and power that they had been given under BP's lineup. Rather surprisingly, I think Harvest, while perfectly placed, and wellimplemented, provided a bit of an uneasy lull to the progression between some of my favorite standalone Opeth tunes, tracks 1-5. All in all, however, I became to realize what Opeth stood for in it's most popular album, but to put it to words, would be in a sense IMPOSSIBLE.
shortly after putting down BP, I ordered, with much wait, both Orchid and Morningrise....Orchid came first and gave me insight to where the band came from. Orchid is a great record despite the lack of storyline of direction. It is clear that even early in their carrer, Opeth itself had its own direction and the stubborn ambition to push them in that direction. Orchid is, however, my most favorite as far as visual presentation goes. I did (for actually all of the Candlelight written albums) receive the newer version complete with bonus tracks, but I have witnessed the original cd. BLACK! that's all Opeth needed. The Orchid on the front is one of the most beautifully done covers I have seen, and the short but sweet booklet makes MAYH's look like a black and blue piece of paper to be used for keeping condensation from an iced tea off a wooden oak chest.
Now onto Morningrise. My final album to be listened to. I'll have to say, I was quite imressed still, despite my expectations of ambition and emotional prowess. I'd heard rumors of a 20 minute metal song, and truly not being all too impressed with Edge Of Sanity's 40 minute "Crimson", I was simply skeptical again of Opeth's undeniable trust. Stupid me.
While I still love the cd (which is a given for Opeth now), I really don't have much to say about it. Anyone who thinks this to be the best certainly has some great points to surface in the argument, but for me, Morningrise was not nearly what I thoght it would be. I represented everything Opeth was, but it a more narrow expanse....yes i know it had a extreme amount of complexity to it. Truth be told, while the music is still incredible, it didnt draw me in half as much as Deliverance. The storyline, on the other hand, evoked my own short Opeth style tale, as my writing has forever become changed for the much better because Akerfeldt was born, and I thank him more than I think I've ever thanked anyone for opening my imagination tenfold.
So rather than draw this probably boring review on much longer, I'll recap:
1. Still Life (the whole mindblowing album)
2. Blackwater Park (Bleak)
3. Deliverance (Masters Apprentices)
4. My Arms Your Hearse (April Ethereal, *Remember Tomorrow*)
5. Orchid (In Mist She Was Standing)
6. Damnation (To Rid the Disease)
7. Morningrise (Black Rose Immortal, Advent...I can't decide)
In closing, I need help. I need a REAL, unopened Still Life, and have nowhere to look (where I won't be either ripped off or cheated). any help will be appreciated.
Your turn. Comment as you will constructively. I'm happy to talk on AIM as well about Opeth at pretty much any time @ sonsoffinwe. Thanks for listening.
Peace
That is: I will try to put Opeth into a perspective from someone who generally avoids the sound "death metal", for lack of a more generic name.
I hail from Cape Cod Massachusetts on the eastern part of the US. I grew up with music in my house as early as in my mother's womb when she sang her own material and also introduced me to her personal favorites, ranging from female vocalists/songwriters like Natalie Cole and Bonnie Rait to the pop rock bands/artists of the 70s and 80s like Fleetwood Mac and Bryan Adams. While growing up, that is what I started with, and I'm happy to say I have expanded, because while the narrow musical span of my parents was not boring or void of talent, I felt at the time there was always a bit more to music than what I'd heard.
Without going through my entire history, it can be summed up as a collection of many varrying interests, and not only in music of course. Being born in 1985, my real deep delving into music was not really accomplished until around 93. where does Opeth come in? ...um around 2001 actually. I knoq it's sad, but I might have thought less of a lot other bands if I had discovered the band earlier. A great friend to me sophmore year in High School, Pete, "introduced" me to metal. I "" that word because, during my adventures, much metal had already been given to my ears. But the sentence means more than it seems. In the B.P. (Before Pete) days, the metal, I thought was metal, was actually a pop representation of metal. something britney fans could listen to without too much complaining. It came in various non-metal forms such as bands like Fuel (clearly a standard rock band), System of a Down (what we now call Nu-Metal), Korn (despite their Helmet-esque crapiness, their songwriting appealed to me) Stain'd (which was just depressing shit to me, but I enjoyed it for a few months, and something you might not expect on the list...Emperor.
Emperor, I wasn't to big in, but I knew they were talented and could actually play. Anyway, I wasn't deep into them, and had little interest in them beyond the brilliant "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk".
Little did I know, there was a much larger metal world out there with much more inside it. Among the bands I was introduced to and grew to love (In Flames, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Anathema) there was this obscure little band called Opeth, that everyone of his friends seemed to don in shirts and other accessories and growl the name incessantly during their daily conversations.
So, with other dark metal bands I had previously come across, including the obvious Emperor, and another band I absolutely despise, Cradle of Filth, I was more than expectedly a bit skeptical. It was not until I got a job, during the wane of my junior year, that I had decided to take myself up on the idea of introducing myself to the band with their new CD (four months released), Deliverance. It was not as rough a ride as I had expected. Of course the vocals were something of a new experience, and I didn't welcome them all to kindly, but the music on Deliverance was just the kind of Tool meets Camel feeling I had always imagined metal to aspire to be.
There were no magic buttons to push as far as Opeth was concerned. I could tell the band was playing the way they had always felt, and the talent and emotion filling each movement proved their devotion to REAL MUSIC, in my eyes. Just two days later, another trip to Best Buy gave me Damnation. Now Damnation was a haven to me at the time, considering my disapproval for the throaty, vocal passages of Deliverance (it didn't bother me too greatly, considering vocals on Deliv. seemed to either blend in or become drowned out by the music). I had a few pre-samplings of Damnation through the interludes given in the works: Deliverance (1:15), Masters Apprentices (5:20), as well as the whole of A Fair Judgement.
How did these two albums compare to me?
Deliverance, I grew to enjoy, mostly because of Masters Apprentices and A Fair Judgement. Looking back on the cd as a whole, I can really see a big change from the earlier days. I rate this one number three, considering Opeth's entire collection, only outdone by Still Life and Blackwater Park.
Damnation was a gem to me when I was getting to know the band. To fans, it seemed a dissapintment to be mostly devoid of any metal (with the exception of passages in Closure), but to me, it was a perfect represntation, a more welcoming introduction to a band, I would have been less interested in if I had only listened to Deliverance. It showed me this (still mysterious) Opeth, had something original and special.
After that senior year had pulled up sped away and I gave my goodbyes to Pete and our times together. And it really wasnt until october 2003 when I decided to retrieve more Opeth. I had read numerous review online claiming some records to be harder than others, but I just wanted to listen to the goddam music, so I decided to find myself some more Opeth, this time, it was Still Life. I was intrigued by the plot someone had laid down on some fansite, and decided to search for it. Unfortunately my search landed me in my chair, downloading the tracks in the worst way from the internet. Why? I couldn't find the cd. It was only actually until a couple days ago I had found out that the cd was released on Peaceville (Anathema, My Dying Bride, Doom, etc.) and was no longer to be reprinted. more on that later.
So I ended up with all the tracks neatly set on a nice burned cd ready to play. let me say out of turn, that the end of serenity painted death, i originally thought to be the fault of the filesharer clipping the track, however, now knowing the true intent makes it all the much cooler and genius. My prayers are now directed to Opeth. Still Life was a dream come true to the music listener. It fused more styles than I could count during it's runtime. Needless to say it was, and still is, my favorite album (despite the sure valid opinions of others). The only regret I had was that i couldn't find the damn thing anywhere. The Moor, as someone wrote on this forum and I wish to paraphrase, is quite possibly one of the greatest pieces of music ever recorded. A lot of people pass Still Life (and to a lesser extent BP) off as being too prog. Aside from that as being a stupid remark, prog metal is way not the righ "label" to have given a band as talented as Opeth. Though by definition they are prog, they do not follow the somewhat ugly connotations prefaced by the progressive movement, and if they ever were just a bit too progressive, their grace covers it up nicely.
After Still Life came to me, I had it in mind that the three records I had sufficed enough to indentify the sound of a band, a band i grew to absolutely love. The next cd, My Arms Your Hearse, completely skewed forever my taking any serious talent as "indetifiable". MAYH was a bit tough to get used to, mainly because, so far my experiences with the band had been extremely widely varied and experimental. I got the hang of it shortly after I bought the next addition, the highly talked about Blackwater Park. Truly, I couldn't see what everyone was talking about until about a month of listening to the thing. But I soon came to realize that Parts like Bleak and Dirge For November could not, by any means, be reproduced with the same energy and power that they had been given under BP's lineup. Rather surprisingly, I think Harvest, while perfectly placed, and wellimplemented, provided a bit of an uneasy lull to the progression between some of my favorite standalone Opeth tunes, tracks 1-5. All in all, however, I became to realize what Opeth stood for in it's most popular album, but to put it to words, would be in a sense IMPOSSIBLE.
shortly after putting down BP, I ordered, with much wait, both Orchid and Morningrise....Orchid came first and gave me insight to where the band came from. Orchid is a great record despite the lack of storyline of direction. It is clear that even early in their carrer, Opeth itself had its own direction and the stubborn ambition to push them in that direction. Orchid is, however, my most favorite as far as visual presentation goes. I did (for actually all of the Candlelight written albums) receive the newer version complete with bonus tracks, but I have witnessed the original cd. BLACK! that's all Opeth needed. The Orchid on the front is one of the most beautifully done covers I have seen, and the short but sweet booklet makes MAYH's look like a black and blue piece of paper to be used for keeping condensation from an iced tea off a wooden oak chest.
Now onto Morningrise. My final album to be listened to. I'll have to say, I was quite imressed still, despite my expectations of ambition and emotional prowess. I'd heard rumors of a 20 minute metal song, and truly not being all too impressed with Edge Of Sanity's 40 minute "Crimson", I was simply skeptical again of Opeth's undeniable trust. Stupid me.
While I still love the cd (which is a given for Opeth now), I really don't have much to say about it. Anyone who thinks this to be the best certainly has some great points to surface in the argument, but for me, Morningrise was not nearly what I thoght it would be. I represented everything Opeth was, but it a more narrow expanse....yes i know it had a extreme amount of complexity to it. Truth be told, while the music is still incredible, it didnt draw me in half as much as Deliverance. The storyline, on the other hand, evoked my own short Opeth style tale, as my writing has forever become changed for the much better because Akerfeldt was born, and I thank him more than I think I've ever thanked anyone for opening my imagination tenfold.
So rather than draw this probably boring review on much longer, I'll recap:
1. Still Life (the whole mindblowing album)
2. Blackwater Park (Bleak)
3. Deliverance (Masters Apprentices)
4. My Arms Your Hearse (April Ethereal, *Remember Tomorrow*)
5. Orchid (In Mist She Was Standing)
6. Damnation (To Rid the Disease)
7. Morningrise (Black Rose Immortal, Advent...I can't decide)
In closing, I need help. I need a REAL, unopened Still Life, and have nowhere to look (where I won't be either ripped off or cheated). any help will be appreciated.
Your turn. Comment as you will constructively. I'm happy to talk on AIM as well about Opeth at pretty much any time @ sonsoffinwe. Thanks for listening.
Peace
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