Least Favorite Album...and WHY?

[Land Of Grey And Pink]

I dont really have a bright idea for a new thread at the moment, so heres the best i could come up with at the moment...


What is your least favorite Opeth album...and give several reasons why.




Mine: Deliverance - lacks a lot of the diversity of previous Opeth albums. Some of the riffs and segments drag on a bit longer than they should, and arent always followed up with a more interesting part...which opeth usually has a nice knack for doing. I do like the album's darkness and a lot of the mellow parts are pretty great, but simply not enough of that for me to be completely satisfied...the album leaves me wanting more from it.

 

[jaykeegan]

I'd have to say Damnation. But don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic album for it just being experimental but i just prefer Opeth's real side a lot more & i'm glad Damnation was just a one of thing. It's good that there keeping it exclusive.

 

[Nico]

D1 and D2 are both bland by Opeth's standards, as it's pretty obvious they each focused on a specific side of the band, instead of dynamicaly mixing styles. Oh well. I find Deliverance, while being flat and uninteresting, still has some good riffs and such (ignoring the fact that they get repeated a lot). Damnation, while being on the opposite shore, does also have some good songs, nice melodies. Sure, it's not Opeth, but its nice.

Blackwater Park is my least favorite. This album is where the cliche of Opeth becomes obious. This was the last album I listened to, and so after having heard all the other material, nothing was groundbreaking or even remotely interesting to me on this album. The only songs I enjoy would be The Lepper Affinity and The Funeral Portrait (this song has a bit of a MAYH feel to it). The others, in my oppinion, are boring. Bleak is terrible. I cant explain why, it just always has been. Drapery is the ultimate cliche of heavy/soft, Harvest is the 'mellow' track that just had to be in the album, and the other songs just lack identity.

 

[neuralfraud]

D1 and D2 are both bland by Opeth's standards, as it's pretty obvious they each focused on a specific side of the band, instead of dynamicaly mixing styles. Oh well. I find Deliverance, while being flat and uninteresting, still has some good riffs and such (ignoring the fact that they get repeated a lot). Damnation, while being on the opposite shore, does also have some good songs, nice melodies. Sure, it's not Opeth, but its nice.

Blackwater Park is my least favorite. This album is where the cliche of Opeth becomes obious. This was the last album I listened to, and so after having heard all the other material, nothing was groundbreaking or even remotely interesting to me on this album. The only songs I enjoy would be The Lepper Affinity and The Funeral Portrait (this song has a bit of a MAYH feel to it). The others, in my oppinion, are boring. Bleak is terrible. I cant explain why, it just always has been. Drapery is the ultimate cliche of heavy/soft, Harvest is the 'mellow' track that just had to be in the album, and the other songs just lack identity.

i think you're all full of shit..
cliche opeth album? WTF. This is what opeth wants to play. It is excellent whether you like it or not. Just because it doesnt sound like MAYH or orchid doesnt make it less of an album. The band is evolving and thats a good thing. Take amorphis for example. I know people who say "YEA MAN AMORPHIS ROOLS!" but then i throw in.. elegy or am universum and they're like "WTF? this sucks" - no.. YOU suck.

This is the general idea I've gotten from the replies on this thread. And for those to say "This isnt the REAL opeth" well.. that is just absolutely ridiculous. Ofcourse that's the REAL opeth. Nobody told them they needed to write some all soft music or they'd be in violation of their contract.. nobody told them they needed to write "cliche" material.. and the only reason you've seen it that way is - that's what most people have come to expect. Heavy metal and soft interludes. Blackwater park is a good album and is 100% opeth. Deliverence is good too. They wanted it to be their heaviest album - it is. Damnation is great. They wanted it tobe their softest album - it is. I think its fucking fantastic to be quite honest. The last thing people should do is judge an album based on one thats 5 7 or 8 years old. Stupid. This is opeth and this is what they want to do. This draws parallels to morbid angel as well - they want a continually evolving musical style and listening through the albumbs shows that perfectly.

 

[Nico]

Let it go. Sure, Opeth can record whatever they want. Doesn't mean I have to like it, just because it's Opeth. I wouldn't want them to stagnate, evolution is important. But I did throw in lots of hints to make it obvious that my post is my oppinion... my own and only mine. There are lots of albums I would rather listen to. Doesn't mean I dislike Opeth. Doesn't mean shit in fact.

 

[Evan84]

Orchid because it bores me.

 

[Ermz]

Deliverance, no doubt. Of all the Opeth albums I've ever heard, this has probably been the hardest to digest. Not because it is quasi-abstract like the concept albums made during Opeth's peak, but because it is so monotonous. It's hard to imagine yourself listening to any kind of music that recycles old ideas, simplified and applied to a song structure that has become so cliche it can make your eyes water... add this to the fact that Opeth songs are 10 mins average and you have yourself a contender for a very sub-standard (Opeth) album.

Of all Opeth albums, this has been the only one that's ever left me thinking 'god, will this interlude ever end' or 'will they ever stop playing this fucking riff and move onto the next song...'. This may sound highly dramatised, and I admit it is... I mean comparing Deliverance to waht's out there, it's still a great album, but it nowhere near even scrapes the apex of Opeth's song writing which occured during the concept album era.

It's so goddamned drawn out. I think that Shroud here is using the cliche tag in the same context in which I introduced it in some thread a few days back, so I'll rationalize for you who don't understand. You see ever since Orchid, Opeth have been praised as a band, almost as THE exclusive metal band who mix heavy/acoustic material. Quite obviously this is not the case. It's just that Opeth did this with such dramatic and contrasting effect that it became almost a cliche in their song structure to have the fundamental 'acoustic parts'. The Drapery Falls is a PERFECT example of this form of cliched song structure in full application... the song itself feels totally forced and almost intentionally stylised into Opeth's now-conventional song structure. Anyhow, back to the drawn out comment. It's easy to see that alot of riffs in Deliverance have been looped one too many times just to fit with Opeth's standard song-lenghts, much to my despair. I would have much rather the album have been shorter and sweeter... yet that wasn't feasible as the band were dually releasing a verse-chorus style pseudo-prog album that has very standard length songs, and of course releasing the 'heavy' album with similar length songs would warrant criticisms of 'SELLOUT!!!'.

It's not too difficult to point out that the reason Deliverance was so bland and dry is because the band were virtually splitting at the seams during the recording process. I'm sure half the material was written in the studio alone, under intense pressure, whereas most of the focus would have gone towards the Damnation album anyhow.

Deliverance has come out a more metal-fan friendly album, as the ideas in it aren't too hard to digest and the riffs are all fairly straight forward mosh-material. It's also the perfect stepping stone into the rest of their catalogue as it shows their song structures at their most conventional. It contains all the major elements that define who Opeth ARE, yet in a sense where all the elements are simplified and presented in a straight-forward manner. Once again, I'm not sure if this was done intentionally or not.

 

[Nuk3m]

shroudofdusk has the right idea, still life was the top of the mark for opeth so thats what I call real opeth , when they seemed to be at their highest point. Blackwater Park i least like cos thats when it all came crashing down goodbye to folk and atmosphere and hello to english tossers who think their music is above others but hey he is aloud to be a wanker and im aloud to express my opinion that he IS a wanker, personaly id like to sophisticate my foot up his ass, but hey this thread is about music. Orchid is raw and young where u can hear the possibilities to come. Morningrise had its bass driven stuff plus more black metal vocals the usual. MAYH is where it evolved a ibit but i think this time for the good. Still life the musical parts are prolly the hardest to play, still got the folk influence and alot of emotion in it maybe Mikael just ran out after this, lets hope this black metal album goes below steves vision of elitism and have some good content and fucking emotion. My first msuic teacher said to me in my first lesson almost 5 years ago " music has no rules or boundries" i still beleive this till today now this does allow for steve wilson and u cunts to come at me saying see no rules so they can keep to the D1 and D2 stuff but just fuck off with the "musicallity" and "sophistication" cos thats a clear sign of when someone is in need of a belting to get back to reality and see that music has no boundries nor class so whay act above me?

 

[Ermz]

i think you're all full of shit..
cliche opeth album? WTF. This is what opeth wants to play. It is excellent whether you like it or not. Just because it doesnt sound like MAYH or orchid doesnt make it less of an album. The band is evolving and thats a good thing. Take amorphis for example. I know people who say "YEA MAN AMORPHIS ROOLS!" but then i throw in.. elegy or am universum and they're like "WTF? this sucks" - no.. YOU suck.

Excellent whether we like it or not? Infallible logic there. I think you're mixing your subjectivity with objectivity there, or just can't differentiate between the two. I can understand perfectly if you find the album to be 'excellent', and I can certainly understand the statement that it is an Opeth album regardless of whether we like it or not, however I certainly cannot understand how find the description 'excellent' of the album to be an objective one.

The move Opeth made during Deliverance, in my opinion definately isn't a progressive one, so I disagree that the band is 'evolving'. Their music is become much more stylised, in large part due to their continuous collaboration with Steve Wilson, I'm sure. Along with this stylisation, they have simplified and stripped away the finer points of the music... the parts that warranted repeated listens and analysis to fully comphrehend the scope of the entire piece (ie. Still Life, MAYH...).

I find it to be less of an album not because I don't appreciate it as much as the older works, but because it borrows heavily from all of them then stylises and ultimately simplifies the ideas.

This is the general idea I've gotten from the replies on this thread. And for those to say "This isnt the REAL opeth" well.. that is just absolutely ridiculous. Ofcourse that's the REAL opeth. Nobody told them they needed to write some all soft music or they'd be in violation of their contract.. nobody told them they needed to write "cliche" material.. and the only reason you've seen it that way is - that's what most people have come to expect. Heavy metal and soft interludes. Blackwater park is a good album and is 100% opeth. Deliverence is good too. They wanted it to be their heaviest album - it is. Damnation is great. They wanted it tobe their softest album - it is. I think its fucking fantastic to be quite honest. The last thing people should do is judge an album based on one thats 5 7 or 8 years old. Stupid. This is opeth and this is what they want to do. This draws parallels to morbid angel as well - they want a continually evolving musical style and listening through the albumbs shows that perfectly.

Exactly, a solid evolution at this point would have been to expand their now-conventional song structures to have this cliche not apply as strongly. They haven't done that. If anything they've highlighted it and worked off it to create an album that emphasises everything associated with 'Opeth'. It's more regression than progression IMHO.

 

[mot-]

I agree partly to Moonlapse. Deliverance is definitely the most straight und conventional album Opeth ever wrote, although it remains a very good album for me.

Id have to list Orchid and Deliverance beingt the least favorite album. Both are good, but cant be compared to the other albums, which are of higher quality.

I just hope Opeth will do something completely new with the next release, something nobody expects.

 

[Land Of Grey And Pink]

Well Moonlapse...i would agree with you on most levels, accept for one. I dont necessarily feel Opeth has "regressed" with Deliverance. I feel Opeth still has progressed, but simply made the songwriting aproach different...this is still progressing, for its something they hadnt done before. Even though the material itself seems like a regression from the previous albums...the change in aproach does indeed qualify as progression.

Many progressive bands had their most technical and diverse albums to start, then changed to a more straightforward aproach...but it doesnt make them any less "prog" nor does it mean theyre regressing. just how i feel

 

[[KOTNO]Narrot]

I also see what others have mentioned: opeth are getting stagnant in their music.

i know very few bands that did not have that problem, and there's no band that made their best albums after releasing 5 or more albums before (of course that's a subjective point here).

i guess if devilerance would have been released after MAYH everyone would have been fascinated but they got predictable after SL and BP. I'd vote for more progression, new musical elements and such.



anyhow, i will like their next album even if it is in the vein of deliverance but i am hoping for a 'normal' opeth album with damnation-like parts, jazzy elements (Still life) and also some totally new, surprising elements...that would be just fine...





david

 

[Dreadful]

I'd say damnation. All of the songs except for "ending credits" and "weakness" are basically the same style. They're catchy of course, but don't progress into something else. I think Mikael or the band should have included more 70s proggish styles, like some crazy bass writing that was shown on the first couple albums. While the drums on this album are rather simple for a more mellow songwriting purpose, the bass could have been way more creative. At least make a couple songs that way. They should have a variety of songs on the album that have different moods and twists like Yes or King Crimson would do on in court of crimson king or close to the edge. The production of the album was insanely good, the could have made it more raw or dull. Afterall, Mikael said it was an ode to his CD collection. But I suppose they wanted a modern day feel to it, like how porcupine tree does, not to clearly rip off any 70s bands.

 

[RaZ]

I really don't know. I love them all. The ones that I listen to the most are the two latest ones, especially Damnation and I also love BWP and Morningrise just rules with black rose and farewell. Neway, shoot me for it, I don't care, but I'll say that my least favourite is "still life" because I listen to it less frequently. Still is a fantastic album, don't get me wrong

Opeth

 

[bmh]

Least favourite... hmm...
I love everything Opeth's done, but I enjoy the most their post-Morningrise work. Orchid and Morningrise have their own good thing going on, and they're enjoyable in a different way.

But as I said, I do much prefer everything after those two.

 

[PiNkMaGGiT]

I love every opeth album... so I'd probably have to say the first two because I don't like the production....

 

[dorian gray]

moonlapse says some good stuff here in my opinion. at the very least, he writes fairly well.
regarding what someone (kotno?) said about deliverance being predictable: i dig that thought. although it's depressing in its accuracy. so many bands eventually get so boring.
sometimes its just because you've been around long enough to become attracted to other styles. that happened to me with rush and a couple other bands. i couldnt bring myself to even listen to vapor trails.
other times its because the band itself cant, or dont want to, move beyond their current stylistic leanings. opeth *seems* to do that with deliverance. maybe. thats a bit difficult to pin down because, like someone else here said, deliverances sound and style may have been totally intentional and *not* what may be a perceived lack of musicianship. who knows?
what is more interesting to me now after thinking about this is the psychology behind what seems to just be simple boredom. music elicits an emotional repsonse that is neurochemical in nature. for some listeners the music needs to take a different direction or be *progressive* for that neurochemical repsonse to continue. yeah, that different direction may be met by listening to different bands and different genres, but what about the same band? does everyone else have experiences where their love for a band just dries up and their musical styles become bland and boring (for the listeners perception)? i think itd be interesting to statistically show how long it takes the average listener to get tired of a band. i bet it varies with the age of the listener but i bet it would be around five years.
oh, yeah, my least favorite opeth album is orchid. i think its pretty hard to listen to. the production is terrible and the bass sounds like a fart. i started with BWP so i find it hard to get into orchid which is, stylistically, a bit different.
ps: this post fucking sucks. its my last one.

 

[Stoner Sioux]

Morningrise....I just don't get into that one as much. Its good and all, but its my least fave of all Opeth albums.

 

[Lord_AgathoN]

Morningrise is THE best album in my opinion......followed by orchid and still life.

My least favourite is Damnation. Like already said....its a fantastic album but its simply NOT opeth. Windowpane etc.........really great songs......but not compareable.

And to Deliverance - i cant understand what u are saying.

 

[TheFourthHorseman]

Orchid...it's like a more chaotic Morningrise that I just can't get into no matter what. The only song I CAN get into, which is In Mist She Was Standing, is kinda hard to listen to too cause the opening riff just makes me turn on Morningrise. Mike's clean vocals aren't that great on Orchid either.

Deliverance is pretty bland indeed, but it still has songs that I like. Just songs that get boring fast too.

It's kind of weird that people can't get over the production on Morningrise and Orchid...I mean hell, they're not even badly produced, Swanö did a great job. Most black metal has ten times worse production. Just goes to show it's all subjective I guess.