GMD Poll: Top Ten Albums of 1999

[crimsonfloyd]

The Moor is really overrated - it may have one time been one of my favourite Opeth songs but it definitely wore off. It meanders way too much. I like the acoustic intro and a couple of the sections, though. Godhead's Lament is quite good, and actually you've reminded me that I like Moonlapse Vertigo, but will have to revisit it to see if I still feel the same.

Serenity Painted Death is not good, one of the worst songs from their earlier material imo.

I don't find The Moor to meander. As the opener, it sets the mood before picking up the pace. I find it functions as good "world building" before kicking into high gear.

Still Life comes off as really insincere and even pretentious, especially coming off My Arms, Your Hearse which was far more concise in its approach and actually filled with real emotion which is something I don’t get from Still Life.

There's nothing insincere about it. It's a fictional story, which is well told. And I don't see what makes it any more pretentious than any other concept album out there. It tells a pretty classically constructed tragedy without any frills. If anything, My Arms Your Hearse is the more pretentious concept album, with supernatural elements involved, the cycle of the seasons appearing throughout the album, and each song ending with the title of the next song. To be clear, I find all of that effective, but if you're gonna critique Still Life for being pretentious, then it seems to follow that MAYH is even more pretentious.

Also, listen to that Nox Intempesta if you haven’t. Fucking rules and I’d like to know your thoughts on it. I'd also recommend Lucifugum's On the Sortilage of Christianity if you don't know it since I know you're a Nokturnal Mortum fan.

Cool I'll check them both out. Thanks for the rec.

 

[Dak]

It's been a minute since we had a good Opeth argument. Hints of Controversial opinions ~2010.

 

[Phylactery]

I like The Moor, what I mean by meandering is that parts of it drag. The intro drags on way too long, until it gets good at around 2 minutes in. And a few of the other sections outstay their welcome imo. Also, that humming part is cringy.

To be clear, I don't think the concept is pretentious, infact I quite like the idea, I'm talking about the music. And pretentious was probably the wrong word. I just find it to come across as insincere and quite dry in its emotion, compared to previous albums by the band. Very little of the songs hold any emotional value for me, even though they're clearly trying. I've just relistened to the first 2 tracks and "Moonlapse Vertigo" and "Serenity Painted Death" and it's moments in "Godhead's Lament" like "...searching my way to perplexion, the gleam of her eyes in that moment she knew" and "What would they care if I did stay no-one would know what would they care if I did stay no-one should know" that as a teenager I might have found moving, but now I definitely do not. Mikael's clean vocals certainly don't help with this issue, although to be fair, I've never been a huge fan of them. I prefer them when they were less technically proficient as I found them to have more emotional depth - see Dirge for November as a later example of this. "Moonlapse Vertigo" stood out when I just listened to it as being the most emotionally impacting of these songs.

Another issue I find with this album is the growling - it sounds really out of place a lot of the time to me. These songs aren't "heavy" or "dark" enough to support them at all and I actually think they are his worst harsh vocals of the first 5 albums in a lot of cases. Very monotonous and lacking a lot of the elongated screams/growls that he uses much more frequently in other albums. It's almost like he's bored doing them and that they're only there because that's what Opeth did at the time.

Still Life is more ambitious in its song writing than My Arms, Your Hearse, but ultimately fails to hit the mark as often as the previous album for me.

 

[Omni]

You're new around here, aren't you?

Not as new as you. Beat you by several months despite your embarrassing post count.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

You have had as many accounts as he currently has posts.

 

[The Ozzman]

It's been a minute since we had a good Opeth argument. Hints of Controversial opinions ~2010.

We should move this to the Opeth forum.


Wait...

 

[Omni]

You have had as many accounts as he currently has posts.

Which accounts would those be? I've made all of two accounts here and one of them was made so I could contact Deron and post in the interim while I waited for him to help me get this one back because I had no access to the email address it was associated with.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

I like The Moor, what I mean by meandering is that parts of it drag. The intro drags on way too long, until it gets good at around 2 minutes in. And a few of the other sections outstay their welcome imo. Also, that humming part is cringy.

To be clear, I don't think the concept is pretentious, infact I quite like the idea, I'm talking about the music. And pretentious was probably the wrong word. I just find it to come across as insincere and quite dry in its emotion, compared to previous albums by the band.

I can kind of see that. The first two albums feel more personal, whereas MAYH and Still Life are more about the story-telling. Of those two, MAYH is much more intense, which can leave to a more emotional listening experience. That said, I really don't find emotion to be lacking on Still Life. It's a more cinematic emotion, but considering that's what they aimed to achieve, I would say they were highly effective.

Very little of the songs hold any emotional value for me, even though they're clearly trying. I've just relistened to the first 2 tracks and "Moonlapse Vertigo" and "Serenity Painted Death" and it's moments in "Godhead's Lament" like "...searching my way to perplexion, the gleam of her eyes in that moment she knew" and "What would they care if I did stay no-one would know what would they care if I did stay no-one should know" that as a teenager I might have found moving, but now I definitely do not. Mikael's clean vocals certainly don't help with this issue, although to be fair, I've never been a huge fan of them. I prefer them when they were less technically proficient as I found them to have more emotional depth - see Dirge for November as a later example of this. "Moonlapse Vertigo" stood out when I just listened to it as being the most emotionally impacting of these songs.

I'd say this is probably my favorite clean performance by Akerfeldt. I find those lines you mentioned very moving (though Dirge for November's clean parts are great as well... the metal parts, on the other hand, drag a bit).

Another issue I find with this album is the growling - it sounds really out of place a lot of the time to me. These songs aren't "heavy" or "dark" enough to support them at all and I actually think they are his worst harsh vocals of the first 5 albums in a lot of cases. Very monotonous and lacking a lot of the elongated screams/growls that he uses much more frequently in other albums. It's almost like he's bored doing them and that they're only there because that's what Opeth did at the time.

Interesting, I never got that sense from it at all. I think the growls are well placed to match the more intense or heavy passages on the album and the narrative. I think this album also has the best interplay of the growls and clean vocals of any Opeth album. All that said, it looks like we have quite contradictory responses to this album.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Which accounts would those be? I've made all of two accounts here and one of them was made so I could contact Deron and post in the interim while I waited for him to help me get this one back because I had no access to the email address it was associated with.

Elric, Talos, TheNightsBane, etc

 

[The Ozzman]

Another requirement to be part of the in crowd: less than 20k posts

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Dodens tho

 

[Vegard Pompey]

no country tho

 

[Omni]

Yeah, that definitely isn't a requirement to be in-crowd. That being said, I do have a lot of respect for the fact that @Slayed Necros is the most senior regular who posts in this board and he has so few posts considering that he has been on this site for so many years. He is a true hero.

 

[Phylactery]

Well he needs to post more in these times when hardly anyone is posting. And he almost always recommends good shit.

1. Nox Intempesta - Damnanus Dominum
2. Avenger - Fall of Devotion, Wrath and Blasphemy
3. Kyprian's Circle - Noitatulen vartija
4. Night Conquers Day - Rebellion is the Art of Survival
5. Mutiilation - Remains of a Ruined Cursed Dead Soul
6. Demoncy - Within the Sylvan Realms of Frost
7. Sabbat - Karisma
8. Bewitched - Dragonflight
9. Lucifugum - On the Sortilage of Christianity
10. Sargatanas - The Enlightenment (could do with a good few minutes shaved off and then it might be higher, but this is some nasty black/death)

Honourable mentions:

Warloghe - The First Possession
Immolation - Failures for Gods
Lunar Aurora - of Stargates and Bloodstained Celestial Spheres
Agalloch - Pale Folklore
Slough Feg - Twilight of the Idols
Demoncy - Joined in Darkness
Frozen Shadows - Dans les bras des immortels
Taake - Nattestid ser porten vid
Aeternus - Shadows of Old
Angelcorpse - The Inexorable
Dominus Xul - The Primigeni Xul
Averse Sefira - Homecoming's March

Might need to make a few edits. This is a really good year, especially for black metal.

 

[Dak]

Yeah, that definitely isn't a requirement to be in-crowd. That being said, I do have a lot of respect for the fact that @Slayed Necros is the most senior regular who posts in this board and he has so few posts considering that he has been on this site for so many years. He is a true hero.

That's how one really contributes to a forum. Not posting.

 

[Omni]

That's how one really contributes to a forum. Not posting.

Or some people just have a level of quality control and don't have to reply to every single post or argue with everyone else about banal forum drama. Not that I'm one to talk because I love doing the latter.

 

[B_Creamy]

Ño estoy despingado hasta los mameyes. Feliz dia de los padres cabrones!!!

 

[B_Creamy]

World Coming Down is a far superior album

I gotta do a fat ASS line of blow before I listen to this shit brother

 

[B_Creamy]

Well he needs to post more in these times when hardly anyone is posting. And he almost always recommends good shit.

1. Nox Intempesta - Damnanus Dominum
2. Avenger - Fall of Devotion, Wrath and Blasphemy
3. Kyprian's Circle - Noitatulen vartija
4. Night Conquers Day - Rebellion is the Art of Survival
5. Mutiilation - Remains of a Ruined Cursed Dead Soul
6. Demoncy - Within the Sylvan Realms of Frost
7. Sabbat - Karisma
8. Bewitched - Dragonflight
9. Lucifugum - On the Sortilage of Christianity
10. Sargatanas - The Enlightenment (could do with a good few minutes shaved off and then it might be higher, but this is some nasty black/death)

Honourable mentions:

Warloghe - The First Possession
Immolation - Failures for Gods
Lunar Aurora - of Stargates and Bloodstained Celestial Spheres
Agalloch - Pale Folklore
Slough Feg - Twilight of the Idols
Demoncy - Joined in Darkness
Frozen Shadows - Dans les bras des immortels
Taake - Nattestid ser porten vid
Aeternus - Shadows of Old
Angelcorpse - Exterminate
Dominus Xul - The Primigeni Xul
Averse Sefira - Homecoming's March

Might need to make a few edits. This is a really good year, especially for black metal.

Imma listen to that first album man, but if its trash Im putting a hit on your fucking head

 

[Dak]

Or some people just have a level of quality control and don't have to reply to every single post or argue with everyone else about banal forum drama. Not that I'm one to talk because I love doing the latter.

I definitely reply to all the posts. Like this one. Let's get it on!