GMD Poll: Opeth’s Discography Ranked

[onionbust]

1. Morningrise
2. My Arms, Your Hearse
3. Blackwater Park
4. Orchid
5. Still Life
6. Ghost Reveries
7. Deliverance
8. Watershed
9. Heritage
10. Damnation
11. Pale Communion
12. Sorceress

 

[Allfader]

What do you think of the new Opeth track, gentlemen? Also, I dont know what to think of the album format. I mean, both Swedish and English lyrics? What for?

Sounds like latter Soen with an extra 70's wannabe feel. Funny.

The solo is so out of place... I prefer their previous more melodic and heartfelt solos.

Opeth is gone. This should be called Mike's musical banter.

 

[Anom@nder Rake]

last year i re-listened to their albums that i was already familiar with. i can't remember if i listened to something released after Ghost Reveries. i doubt i'll get around to it by the time this poll is closed

1. My Arms, Your Hearse - by far their most coherent album
2. Morningrise - To Bid You Farewell is probably my favorite Opeth song
3. Damnation - this album scratches that dark prog itch every now and then
4. Blackwater Park - major nostalgia for this album as it was the first one i got into that had growling vocals
5. Orchid - never really got into this album even when i was a big Opeth fan
6. Deliverance - this is a really dull album. A Fair Judgement is the only good track on it
7. Still Life - i really struggled to get through this the last time i listened to it. seemed really corny to me
8. Sorceress - decent album. easily their best since dropping the "death metal" from their sound
9. Ghost Reveries - so bad it killed my interest in the band
10. Pale Communion – better than Heritage but probably not something I’d want to spend more time with
11. Heritage – more listenable than Watershed but completely forgettable
12. Watershed – what a train-wreck. lol’d a bunch

 

[jimmy101]

After giving Damnation a spin for the first time in many years I have decided to edit my list.

 

[Allfader]

7. Still Life - i really struggled to get through this the last time i listened to it. seemed really corny to me

Try to listen the remixed version of the album. It sounds really good and helps to enjoy the album a lot more. The combo The Moor-Godheads-Benighted is quite strong.

 

[no country for old wainds]

shame about everything after that combo though

 

[Allfader]

shame about everything after that combo though

Absolutely. Face of Melinda is still pretty good, but Serenity and especially White Cluster are awful. Moonlapse is like a weaker cover of Godheads.

 

[Dak]

Watershed is what happened when Opeth tried to be Opeth but badly.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

1. Blackwater Park: I consider this and Still Life Opeth's signature style. On no other albums did they combine extreme metal and prog with such bold, distinctive clarity, and Blackwater Park was easily the more ass-kicking of the two.
2. Orchid: They perfected a kind of musical odyssey on the first two albums, and I totally get why people rank them highest. I just think the heavier sound on later albums adds a crucial emotional impact.
3. Morningrise: Neck and neck with Orchid.
4. Still Life: A bit noodly and unaggressive, which I assume is why it gets so much shit, but it's still elegantly written and packed full of ideas.
   
5. Damnation: Can't compete with their best metal albums since it puts Mikael's boring clean vocals front and center, but the songwriting is damn good, and takes their acoustic depth to another level. Perhaps the coolest thing is how "un-prog" the whole album is. After hearing so many nauseating, soulless jams from Heritage onward, I wish they'd just cut the bullshit already and go back to a stripped-down style like this.
   
6. Deliverance: Title track is one of my absolute favorites. The rest is pretty meh in the songwriting department, but soundwise it's nearly as impactful as Blackwater Park.
   
7. My Arms, Your Hearse: This is one of those cases where I'll strongly differ with the people who think "consistency" is a key virtue in music. We're talking about Opeth here. Why bother listening to them if your favorite album is the one that sounds the most like a hundred other metal bands?
   
8. Watershed: The signs of creative fatigue are clear now, but they're still full of surprises. "Heir Apparent" is one of their darkest songs ever, and "Burden" is melodically astonishing.
9. Ghost Reveries: Pretty much agree with Allfader, except "Reverie/Harlequin Forest" is my favorite track.
10. Heritage: The pure suckage begins.
11. Pale Communion
12. Sorceress

 

[jimmy101]

Personally I've always felt Serenity Painted Death is one of the highlights of Still Life.

One of the few times Opeth pull out a riff which has a pinched harmonic in it.

 

[Anom@nder Rake]

Watershed is what happened when Opeth tried to be Opeth but badly.

That's kind of what happened as the second guitarist and drummer left the band. That is by far the worst Opeth album and it's no surprise that they abandoned the metal aspect of their sound after this disaster of an album.

 

[Dak]

1. Blackwater Park: I consider this and Still Life Opeth's signature style. On no other albums did they combine extreme metal and prog with such bold, distinctive clarity, and Blackwater Park was easily the more ass-kicking of the two.

I want to hug you for this.

 

[Phylactery]

7.My Arms, Your Hearse: This is one of those cases where I'll strongly differ with the people who think "consistency" is a key virtue in music. We're talking about Opeth here. Why bother listening to them if your favorite album is the one that sounds the most like a hundred other metal bands?

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. My Arms, Your Hearse is the most consistent in terms of songs and individual sections. There's nothing approaching the dross that most of their other albums feature. I love Morningrise and ranked it joint first with this one, but there's certainly nothing as shitty as "Nectar" on here. I'm not the biggest fan of "When" and "Karma", but they're certainly not bad songs. "April Ethereal", "The Amen Corner" and "Demon of the Fall" annihilate most of the rest of their discography and certainly don't sound like 100 other metal bands. This is the album where they established the style of Still Life and Blackwater Park, except it's far more consistently executed here imo. It also emphasises Akerfeldt's growls which are far more effective than his clean vocals if you ask me. Less noodling and meandering and more concise and coherent song structures are what make this album better than the following ones to me.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. My Arms, Your Hearse is the most consistent in terms of songs and individual sections. There's nothing approaching the dross that most of their other albums feature. I love Morningrise and ranked it joint first with this one, but there's certainly nothing as shitty as "Nectar" on here. I'm not the biggest fan of "When" and "Karma", but they're certainly not bad songs. "April Ethereal", "The Amen Corner" and "Demon of the Fall" annihilate most of the rest of their discography and certainly don't sound like 100 other metal bands. This is the album where they established the style of Still Life and Blackwater Park, except it's far more consistently executed here imo. It also emphasises Akerfeldt's growls which are far more effective than his clean vocals if you ask me. Less noodling and meandering and more concise and coherent song structures are what make this album better than the following ones to me.

It established a lot of the SL/BWP style, but they were way more experimental by SL, and clearly you're not into their experimental side so there's not much I can tell you. I didn't mean MAYH sounds exactly like 100 other bands, but parts of it seem right out of a standard BM playbook, like the minimalistic riffing/drumming that kicks off "April Ethereal".

I like MAYH, but for me it's one of their less memorable / more "everything sounds the same" albums. There's so much stuff on later albums that just blows me away by comparison.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i suppose i get that with still life which is a pretty unusual and diverse record (in a bad way a lot of the time IMO, but still), but not most of the others. BWP is pretty steeped in prog cliches and the metal parts are generally not particularly original either with a few exceptions, deliverance has the most generic metal elements of any of their first seven by far, the first two are pretty derivative of mid-'90s melodic DM/BM, damnation is more or less designed to be a rip off, etc.

then again i think the opening to 'april ethereal' with the quadruple snare or w/e is unusual and great so we're prob not gonna see eye to eye on this

 

[EspaDa]

That's kind of what happened as the second guitarist and drummer left the band. That is by far the worst Opeth album and it's no surprise that they abounded the metal aspect of their sound after this disaster of an album.

Did you mean abandoned?

 

[Allfader]

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. My Arms, Your Hearse is the most consistent in terms of songs and individual sections. There's nothing approaching the dross that most of their other albums feature. I love Morningrise and ranked it joint first with this one, but there's certainly nothing as shitty as "Nectar" on here. I'm not the biggest fan of "When" and "Karma", but they're certainly not bad songs. "April Ethereal", "The Amen Corner" and "Demon of the Fall" annihilate most of the rest of their discography and certainly don't sound like 100 other metal bands. This is the album where they established the style of Still Life and Blackwater Park, except it's far more consistently executed here imo. It also emphasises Akerfeldt's growls which are far more effective than his clean vocals if you ask me. Less noodling and meandering and more concise and coherent song structures are what make this album better than the following ones to me.

Absolutely.

MAYH is the album were Opeth's songs transition the best, between them and also within them.

There is one thing that people rarely discuss about, but it's something extremely important: Lindgren's role in Opeth. He wrote at least half of the material on the first 2 and wrote key material on the following albums. Besides that - and Mendez also confirmed this much at least - Mikael always wrote shitty wannabe 70's prog material, even on MAYH. It was Lindgren (and Mendez later) who said "that sucks, man". When you create stuff, to trim the fat is almost equally important than writing stuff.

Peter was the guy who kept Mike focused on writing worthy material. That's why Watershed is so fucking awful, disjointed and hellbent on 70's wannabe prog elements and more importantly, that's why Opeth stopped sounding like Opeth. Add Lopez' unique style out and the desaster was guaranteed.

 

[jimmy101]

Peter was the guy who kept Mike focused on writing worthy material. That's why Watershed is so fucking awful, disjointed and hellbent on 70's wannabe prog elements and more importantly, that's why Opeth stopped sounding like Opeth. Add Lopez' unique style out and the desaster was guaranteed.

Yeah, that was my first thought upon originally hearing Watershed. Lindgren seemed to be the "quality control" guy and was clearly sorely missed once Watershed was released. The loss of Lopez was considerable too, and although Axenrot does very respectable work behind the kit, the band as we knew them ceased to exist once Lindgren & Lopez were out of the picture.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

i suppose i get that with still life which is a pretty unusual and diverse record (in a bad way a lot of the time IMO, but still), but not most of the others. BWP is pretty steeped in prog cliches and the metal parts are generally not particularly original either with a few exceptions, deliverance has the most generic metal elements of any of their first seven by far, the first two are pretty derivative of mid-'90s melodic DM/BM, damnation is more or less designed to be a rip off, etc.

"Unusual and diverse" is a good description. Very few bands are really that original, so I don't see the point in focusing on how derivative/generic/cliche they are, unless it's in reaction to people overrating their originality, which I hope I haven't.

I think a lot of people look at their 'heavy part / quiet part' interplay and immediately dismiss it as a stupid, obvious gimmick. It's a gimmick, sure, but one they absolutely mastered. If you like the atmosphere of their music at all, it's amazing to have that feeling of being jarred by the acoustic-to-metal transitions while paradoxically hearing them as part of a single, unified atmosphere. To me there's something magical about that effect.

"Deliverance" (the song) and "The Drapery Falls" are two great examples of the effect. I feel so much fucking intensity during their acoustic sections because of the way they're framed, and it's not at all an experience of 'lol here comes the gimmick again', even though I'm well aware the gimmick exists. On top of that, "Deliverance" has awesome lines like "tell me how your heart's in need / as I drown you in the sea" during the acoustic section, with the subsequent heavy part totally driving that 'die, my darling' sentiment home.

Another key thing is how melodic they are in general. Again, I know people think their melodies are stupid and obvious, but many of those people are also anti-anything popular, so they're missing the point. A lot of the shit Opeth gets comes purely from the fact that they play an underground genre of music in a mainstream-accessible way, and underground loyalists have the 'popular = evil' idea ingrained in their minds.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Heads up to anyone who plans to vote: I’m gonna wrap this up on Friday... let’s say 5 PM PST.