GMD Poll: Opeth’s Discography Ranked

[crimsonfloyd]

Directions: Rank Opeth’s 12 studio albums. Order and number each album 1-12. Ties are OK. Your first place album earns 12 points, your second place album earns 10 points, etc.

Rules:

• You may rank as few as 7 albums. Lists with less than 7 albums will not be counted.
• If you list less than 12 albums, the first placed album will still get 12 points, the last placed album will still get 1 point, and the albums in between will have points distributed proportionately. The average points earned for albums that are not listed will not be impacted positively or negatively, so if you don't rank an album, you neither help it or hurt it.
• If you don't number your list then it will be assumed that it is in ranked order

At the end, the albums will be ranked based on their average number of points per vote.

You have until Friday August 2nd at 4 PM PST to finalize your list, re-familiarize yourself albums you haven’t heard in awhile, familiarize yourself with albums you haven’t heard at all, lobby for any albums you think are underrated, and lobby against any albums you think are overrated.

Orchid (1995)
Morningrise (1996)
My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)
Still Life (1999)
Blackwater Park (2001)
Deliverance (2002)
Damnation (2003)
Ghost Reveries (2005)
Watershed (2008)
Heritage (2011)
Pale Communion (2014)
Sorceress (2016)

 

[The Ozzman]

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

I can't finish Still Life or Orchid anymore. Still Life doesn't get last place because Serenity Painted Death saves it.

 

[Draehl]

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

 

[Allfader]

1 - My Arms, Your Hearse. Their most consistent record and the one who gave them their signature sound. Great atmosphere and performances.

2 - Still Life. The strongest start from any Opeth album is on this one (the first 3 tracks). The acoustic guitar work is also their best here, by a mile. Production and atmosphere are also great on this one.

3 - Deliverance. Not a fan of the production, but the compositions are great. By the Pain... last minutes are quite mediocre tho.

4 - Orchid. That kind of proggy melodic black metal was a good idea, but some of the songs are longer than they should. Forest of October and In Mist are excellent tracks tho.

5 - Blackwater Park. The best prodution of any Opeth album, they really nailed it here. This is a sort of "shit sandwich" album tho.

6 - Damnation. Great prog rock album. Not spectacular compared to 70's prog rock, but it sounds like Opeth and the songs are mostly well written. Only Weakness is actually weak. It also sounds like an honest attempt at "unplugging" themselves, unless the wannabe 70' prog rock albums they are releasing now that are a total failure.

7 - Morningrise. Not as good as Orchid in that style and Black Rose Immortal is way too long with too much filler on it. Nectar is ridiculous. Advent and To Bid.. are easily the best tracks on it.

8 - Ghost Reveries. Drum performance is excellent, yet the compositions are quite uneven. Ghost of Perdition is the only track that actually sounds like Opeth, the rest is kinda strange and disjointed in structure and songwriting. Some songs are just terrible (Hours of wealth and Atonement) and some others are painfully mediocre (The Grand Conjuration, Beneath the Mire).

The rest utterly suck, including Watershed.

 

[Phylactery]

1. Morningrise
1. My Arms, Your Hearse

Tie for the top spot for me. My Arms, Your Hearse is their most consistent record by far. But Morningrise has my favourite individual passages.

3. Orchid - inconsistent and lots of meandering, but scattered with some great passages throughout.

4. Blackwater Park - peaks strong with The Leper Affinity, Dirge for November, half of Bleak and the title track. Harvest is painfully dull and The Funeral Portrait is trash.

5. Still Life - kind of insincere and pretentious to me, but has some good tracks. Serenity Painted Death and White Cluster are pretty bad.

6. Deliverance - lots of overly long tracks and I’ve never got the love for the title track.

7. Ghost Reveries - as said above, Atonement is garbage. The Baying of the Hounds and Reverie/Harlequin Forest are the best songs here imo.

It’s rare I listen to a full Opeth album these days and I find them to be inconsistent, but I like some of their songs quite a bit.

 

[Draehl]

Never understood the hate on Funeral Portrait. It has some nice thick, weird riffs and that solo at the end is just great. It's not their best song, but definitely in the top 20%.

 

[Allfader]

Never understood the hate on Funeral Portrait. It has some nice thick, weird riffs and that solo at the end is just great. It's not their best song, but definitely in the top 20%.

It's just horrible. The main riffs are terrible.

That album has 4 good tracks: Leper, Bleak (mostly the second half), Drapery, BWP. The rest ranks from mediocre (Dirge) to utterly horrible crap (Patterns, Funeral, Harvest). I like the drum sound on this album tho, especially the snare.

 

[Dak]

1. Blackwater Park (2001)
2. My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)
3. Morningrise (1996)
4. Deliverance (2002)
5. Orchid (1995)
6. Still Life (1999)
7. Damnation (2003)
8. Ghost Reveries (2005)
9. Pale Communion (2014)
10. Sorceress (2016)
11. Watershed (2008)
12. Heritage (2011)

 

[Phylactery]

It's just horrible. The main riffs are terrible.

That album has 4 good tracks: Leper, Bleak (mostly the second half), Drapery, BWP. The rest ranks from mediocre (Dirge) to utterly horrible crap (Patterns, Funeral, Harvest). I like the drum sound on this album tho, especially the snare.

Dirge for November is easily one of the best tracks on Blackwater Park. Way better than The Drapery Falls.

 

[Draehl]

Dirge for November is easily one of the best tracks on Blackwater Park. Way better than The Drapery Falls.

Agreed. Only gripe is it has too much build-up and the heavy bit is rather short.

 

[Allfader]

I find it mediocre because the build up is not good, too long and the "good part" is not that good and it's too short.

Deliverance could have been a far better album if Wilson mixed it instead Sneap. It sounds too clean, too sterile, the mix is not as balanced as BWP was. For Damnation it was a good decision to have a clean sound, but Deliverance needed more atmosphere.

 

[jimmy101]

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

 

[jimmy101]

Deliverance could have been a far better album if Wilson mixed it instead Sneap. It sounds too clean, too sterile, the mix is not as balanced as BWP was. For Damnation it was a good decision to have a clean sound, but Deliverance needed more atmosphere.

I've always felt there was no real reason to split that group of songs into a double-album. If you took the best songs from either release & compressed them into a single album it would have been a whole lot better.

 

[challenge_everything]

1. Blackwater Park

- The Leper Affinity, The Drapery Falls and Dirge for November are peak Opeth. The Funeral Portrait is the only marginally weak point

2. Orchid

- Their most underrated. Probably has more outstanding riffs than any of their other albums, though the transitions are at times clumsier than later works. I prefer basically all of these tracks - other than Under the Weeping Moon - to anything off Morningrise. And the basswork kills anything Martin Mendez managed once he came into the band.

3. Still Life

- Opeth at their most genuinely progressive and epic. Benighted is perhaps the most beautiful moment in their career.

4. Morningrise

- Amazing mood, and again great bass, but this album really needed to end about halfway through Black Rose Immortal.

5. Deliverance

- Missing that wintery production of previous albums but still an excellent album. Title track and Master's Apprentices are great, and the solo on A Fair Judgement is one of my all-time favourites.

6. My Arms, Your Hearse

- The weakest of their first six. Aside from April Ethereal and Demon of the Fall, I don't overly care for this album.

7. Ghost Reveries

- Ghost of Perdition and The Baying of the Hounds are great but the rest is meh. And The Grand Conjuration is a real turd. Adding keyboards really only detracted from Opeth's atmosphere from this point on in their career.

8. Damnation

- Despite Opeth wearing their influences on their sleeve, it's still a rather unique album, as I can't think of any prog rock albums this cold. A bit inconsistent though.

9. Sorceress

Sounds like Akerfeldt name-checking his favourite prog bands but still nicely executed - noticeably better than Pale Communion or Heritage.

10. Watershed

Has its moments but mostly dull. Lopez on drums is sorely missed.

11. Pale Communion

12. Heritage

 

[Krow]

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

Sorceress is fucking awful. Watershed and Damnation are boring. Everything else is at least listenable. I might dig my CDs out and relisten to these to reorder my picks.

 

[Allfader]

1
6. My Arms, Your Hearse

- The weakest of their first six. Aside from April Ethereal and Demon of the Fall, I don't overly care for this album.

You should listen When again. The build-up from 4:13 until 5:50 is one of their best transitions ever. The Amen Corner is also great, especially the doomy midsection, where Mikael delivers some of his lowest and most sustained growls.

 

[J.]

1. Orchid
2. Morningrise
3. Still Life
4. My Arms, Your Hearse
5. Deliverance
6. Blackwater Park
7. Damnation

 

[challenge_everything]

You should listen When again. The build-up from 4:13 until 5:50 is one of their best transitions ever. The Amen Corner is also great, especially the doomy midsection, where Mikael delivers some of his lowest and most sustained growls.

I think 'When' is one of their worst tracks - the clean vocal section at the end is really cringe.

 

[Manic Ferocity]

A band I appreciate but am not necessarily a fan of. I think they're a great gateway band and I loved Blackwater Park and Deliverance back in the day. They've never been particularly good songwriters and that's my biggest gripe with them.

 

[EspaDa]

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