My Arms, Your Hearse - Better than SL and BWP?

[wut wut]

I found that older Opeth stuff hit me harder right away but didn't have that same impact for long. This goes for everything up through Blackwater Park.

Starting with Deliverance, I've found that newer Opeth stuff doesn't take off right away for me, but is more rewarding experiences over time.

My Arms, Your Hearse did blow me away at first. It's still a very good album, but I'm more of a newer material fan.

 

[isolation_years]

MAYH is my favorite, but there are other albums that will always be special, like ghost reveries is what got me into opeth, and still life i was huge on for a while, and blackwater park got me into steve wilson stuff haha

 

[Lenni]

MAYH is my favorite I guess. The atmosphere and thick sound has something very special about it and I have to say that amazing songs like April Ethereal, When and Karma are still unmatched by most of their other stuff IMO.

Btw. I was never a huge fan of Still Life (except for Face of Melinda and maybe Moonlapse + White Cluster).

 

[Lateralus14]

Right now MAYH and Morningrise are probably my least favorite. And I love both albums, its just that I probably wouldn't leave the same CD in my CD player for more than a couple of car rides. For MAYH and Still Life I think your enjoyment depends a lot on how much you get into the concept as thats obviously a huge part of the album. Otherwise, like with me, one might find the more simplistic songs a bit boring. That being the case, April Ethereal and The Amen Corner never stood out to me because I, an MAYH noob, don't see them as moving along the storyline that much in very interesting ways, and so I have to listen to the guitars which are definitely simplistic in comparison to When and Credence.

I'm just a weird Opeth fan right now anyway; besides The Funeral Portrait and Dirge for November (and a little of the title track but only when I'm playing it on the guitar), I haven't even listened to BWP recently. ATM I'm only listening to their last four albums and a bit of Orchid, but every Opeth album is epic to me at some point..

 

[HemeHaci]

Okay, I know sometimes when people starts a new thread, they're burned for either asking something stupid, for repeating an endless question or just being stupid. I don't know if I'll become one of them now, but here it goes...

No offense really but it's simply amazing that you have succeeded in every aspect of these

 

[wwallinga]

I've been meaning to address this topic for some time now. For as long as I've been a member here, I've called Still Life their best album. Every time we do a poll, Still Life wins. It has even been my avatar for almost 5 years. However, after considerable at-home and on-the-road research, I am forced to conclude that MAYH is a better album.

The problem I was having with this decision is that Still Life has, for the most part, better songs. Each one stands as an amazing Opeth recording, imo. Even Benighted, which doesn't get much love around here, is a great song. But, the flow of the record is nowhere near that of MAYH. The transition from Prologue into April Ethereal and When is unparalleled. The middle of the album from Madrigal, to The Amen Corner (which is very under-rated) into the epic Demon of the Fall maintains this theme. Finally, the conclusion, which took me the longest to warm to, closes the record in a beautiful, yet occasionally brutal (see Karma) fashion.

The result is a record that has an incredible flow from start to finish, even though it may not have the best individual songs. So, if I may be permitted one sports analogy, I see Still Life as an All-Star team that has the greatest players, but very little team chemistry. MAYH is the best all-around team.

Either way, they are both fantastic records and clearly Opeth's best.

 

[Albert R]

Yes.

 

[Dammnare]

MAYH is my favourite Opeth album along with BWP and SL. They are the holy trinity of Opeth. No album can match the quality of these 3 albums.

EDIT: Moreover,after reading wwallinga's comments, I absolutely agree with him. The album flows so great together, it is poetic,powerful,it has ups and downs, it has brutality and beauty and ofcourse Epilogue, one of my favourite Opeth songs. Check out my signature....thats the lyrics..feels so poetic while you are listening to the song and you know the story and theme of the album...I like to dream of the story told in MAYH song by song while listening to it...shame that I can't find it in Turkey...only Deliverance Damnation, BWP and GR and Watershed is what I can find here. You can get one from the pirate sellers but ofc I wont do that. Although I listen to their Mp3s because I have downloaded them while I was getting to know the band.....but I bought Lamentations and Roundhouse + 4 albums ( that is GR(Special Edition),Deliverance,Damnation,Blackwater Park)...I will definitely complete that collection one day when I can find one in the local shop here like D&R or something like that. Needless to say both Lamentations and Roundhouse was from UK and Holland since you can't find them here too...but old records like Orchid, Morningrise, MAYH or SL is even harder to find than the DVDs. But as I have said one day....one day I WILL GET THEM ALL !

 

[Iki-ilkkuja]

^Well, I have to say the Yes albums from Fragile to Tales from Topographic Oceans are also an epic musical orgasm.

 

[Junges]

MAYH = Great record? YES!

MAYH > Still Life or BWP? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

This.

 

[ramses]

^Well, I have to say the Yes albums from Fragile to Tales from Topographic Oceans are also an epic musical orgasm.

Being THE biggest Yes fan, I have to agree!

 

[wut wut]

Either way, they are both fantastic records and clearly Opeth's best.

Clearly, the masses of Blackwater Park fans will contend that your conclusion isn't clear at all.

Though I'm not a huge BWP fan.

 

[L0bster]

MAYH feels like their most -metal- album. Lots of minor chords piled on each other, cheezy chorus on all clean guitars, slightly shorter songs. It definately has some awsome moments, but I think it lacks in atmosphere (especially since SL is totally bathing in atmo). I'd also complain on some of the production/mix (bassguitar, snaredrum, cleanguitars).

But this album has the awsomeness of April Etheral, the endpart in Karma, and the climax in When. Of course its a great album.

 

[Chinese Whispers]

So, if I may be permitted one sports analogy, I see Still Life as an All-Star team that has the greatest players, but very little team chemistry. MAYH is the best all-around team.

I really like this analogy, but I must say if I had to choose one Opeth album for my desert island, it'd be 'Still Life', although this may just be because it is where I jumped on the Opeth train.

For the original poster, both 'Morningrise' and 'Orchid' are quite different to the later material (and in a way those two are similiar to each other, with 'Morningrise' being the refinement of 'that style' if you had to choose one first).

 

[To rid you disease]

MAYH feels like their most -metal- album. Lots of minor chords piled on each other, cheezy chorus on all clean guitars, slightly shorter songs. It definately has some awsome moments, but I think it lacks in atmosphere (especially since SL is totally bathing in atmo). I'd also complain on some of the production/mix (bassguitar, snaredrum, cleanguitars).

But this album has the awsomeness of April Etheral, the endpart in Karma, and the climax in When. Of course its a great album.

i agree the production is kinda bad, some heavy parts sound like orchid (which is bad). but what do you mean with the clean guitars??? the outro of credence, for example, it has got the tone of opethz.

 

[Albert R]

MAYH has the best Opeth guitar sound, regardless of the fact that it isn't the best produced album. Just listen to the utterly momentous guitar sound in the mid-section of April Ethereal from 4:43 onwards.

 

[GSRbass_89]

MAYH IMO is like a bridge between the first two albums and modern Opeth. I love the album, when listening i get this certain feeling. Like I wanna say FUCK! a lot cos it's soo good. And plus the band's first attempt at changing their sound, I say pretty fucking good!!

 

[Chinese Whispers]

MAYH IMO is like a bridge between the first two albums and modern Opeth. I love the album, when listening i get this certain feeling. Like I wanna say FUCK! a lot cos it's soo good. And plus the band's first attempt at changing their sound, I say pretty fucking good!!

Yeah, it is definitely a transition album, and it'd be fair to say that it different the both the records that came before and after to some degree. But it is great. It is one of my faves.

 

[Dammnare]

This album does not get enough attention imho in this forum. Everyone is SL fanboy.

 

[Ninfix]

I think the reason why you like MAYH so much is because you've just got it and obviously subject to the "new-album-surge" if you know what I mean.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when I got into it. That's what happened to me with Watershed and Deliverance, but in some way, it feels a little different with MAYH.

I've been meaning to address this topic for some time now. For as long as I've been a member here, I've called Still Life their best album. Every time we do a poll, Still Life wins. It has even been my avatar for almost 5 years. However, after considerable at-home and on-the-road research, I am forced to conclude that MAYH is a better album.

The problem I was having with this decision is that Still Life has, for the most part, better songs. Each one stands as an amazing Opeth recording, imo. Even Benighted, which doesn't get much love around here, is a great song. But, the flow of the record is nowhere near that of MAYH. The transition from Prologue into April Ethereal and When is unparalleled. The middle of the album from Madrigal, to The Amen Corner (which is very under-rated) into the epic Demon of the Fall maintains this theme. Finally, the conclusion, which took me the longest to warm to, closes the record in a beautiful, yet occasionally brutal (see Karma) fashion.

The result is a record that has an incredible flow from start to finish, even though it may not have the best individual songs. So, if I may be permitted one sports analogy, I see Still Life as an All-Star team that has the greatest players, but very little team chemistry. MAYH is the best all-around team.

Either way, they are both fantastic records and clearly Opeth's best.

That helped me alot in how to approach the album. The album(MAYH) in its entirity may be more complete than on SL and BWP, even if the songs individually may be stronger on the other two. However, I think April, When, Demon and The Amen Corner are incredibly strong tracks. (Or maybe it's the "new-album-surge" that talks

Yeah, it is definitely a transition album, and it'd be fair to say that it different the both the records that came before and after to some degree.

That was my first impression of it. Definately different from the albums later on, so I thought it had to be similar to either the two first albums, or a "mix" between the first and the ones after(like, as you sai, a transition, or a bridge).