Opeth Albums and Seasons

[Orchid]

I was reading King Purple Rainbow's thread ("Morning Rises") and it made me think about Opeth's albums and the seasons or "settings" I associate each album with.

• Orchid - Long and dark late-autumn evenings / nights
• Morningrise - Dull, grey autumn day when it rains outside and you have nothing to do.
• MAYH - Blazing hot summer days
• Still Life - Late-summer / early-autumn evenings when it's still warm outside, but the days are short and you can feel the chill carried by the evening wind (ha! how poetic )
• Blackwater Park - Gentle, sunshiny winter days with glistening snow

I really had to think about these. Morningrise was the most difficult one... really difficult. What are your feelings?

 

[Static]

Originally posted by Orchid

• Orchid - Long and dark late-autumn evenings / nights
• Morningrise - Dull, grey autumn day when it rains outside and you have nothing to do.
• MAYH - Blazing hot summer days
• Still Life - Late-summer / early-autumn evenings when it's still warm outside, but the days are short and you can feel the chill carried by the evening wind (ha! how poetic )
• Blackwater Park - Gentle, sunshiny winter days with glistening snow

Orchid - I kind of agree...I more see an endless forest, babbling brooks, yes, during autumn days. There is a very chilling wind blowing through the forest. Switching between day and night (just like every Opeth album).

Morningrise - No, I picture no rain, I see Morningrise as being set during a nice, sunny, brilliant morning (duh). Yet...some dark clouds signal rain later in the day. It is a lovely morning with a sense of foreboding.

MAYH - Yes! Blazing hot summer days, fully accurate description.

Still Life - Fully agree with you here as well.

Blackwater Park - Yes to an extent. It is set during a snowy, cold winter day. But this day is not sunny, it is simply a serene, misty, chillingly calm...beautiful...and yet............foreboding and frightening day...a day in which there the sun is obscured and it seems almost like night but a bit too light to be so. There are snow flakes floating down but the wind threatens the coming of cold winter rain.

Thats the end of my poetic vomitus...

 

[spikes77]

Wow great descriptions guys... let me try

orchid- im gonna have to also say forests , sunny day....mabey also it can be at night , but defintly in a forest-any season
morningrise-im gonna have to say dusk , right before it gets to night , the sun is setting actually...(opposite of album)Forest , mountains spring , summer
my arms your hearst- ur right hot sunny day , mabey a rain here or their....also can be like in the plains , with all the wheat fields with rain clouds overhead
Still Life- to me is the hardest , im gonna have to go cliche and say Forest or like a big grass field and defintly in the nighttime.
Blackwater park- Winter winter winter , foggy very misty as static said , and very cold.


i wish i can go to these places with these exact conditons....it would make the album so much more better.This is a great thread.

 

[Staffan]

Orchid - early summer... sunset in the forest
Morningrise - Spring foggy
Mayh - October
Still life - Winter
Blackwater park - grey autumn

 

[warsofwinter]

I see Opeth in more of a landscape way

Orchid - Watery bog .. dead tree's . mist
Morningrise - beach of tall sharp rocks .. waves crashing into them , water spraying up from them
MaYH - Deep into a dark forest .. very thick with dead tree's ...winter
Still Life - Walking through a field of tall grass on a summer day
BWP - Riverside during a cold morning in fall .....

 

[Heliologue]

except for morningrise, opeth mentions a season in the first line of the first song of every album...

orchid (in mist she was standing) "Seven milestones...Under a watching autumn eye"

mayh - (april ethereal) it's in the title, folks.

still life (the moor) "The sigh of summer upon my return"

blackwater park (leper affinity) "we enter winter once again"

 

[jester00]

im not really hearing mayh as hot summer?

what am i doing wrong lol

 

[Morningrise]

Orchid- Sunset over a series of rolling hills
Morningrise- Forest at night, or very dark rainy day
MAYH- A nice spring day with relatively mild rain
Still Life- "The Moor" Fits perfectly, a sunny day driving through hillsides
Blackwater Park- Winter!

 

[DrX]

The first part of The Amen Corner....
White Summer... reminds me of winter and summer
The Leper Affinity starts with "We entered Winter Once again.." so BWP, at least that song, reminds me of winter too.

 

[Furious B]

Originally posted by saturnix
except for morningrise, opeth mentions a season in the first line of the first song of every album...

orchid (in mist she was standing) "Seven milestones...Under a watching autumn eye"

mayh - (april ethereal) it's in the title, folks.

still life (the moor) "The sigh of summer upon my return"

blackwater park (leper affinity) "we enter winter once again"

Good interpretation saturnix ... I'll give you my feeling when I listen to them.

Orchid - Br00tal winter night, with a clear sky and stars shinning. I get a sense of a man riding a horse through a vast forest.

Morningrise - through the first half I feel as if it's set in a foggy, cold , and dark in swamp area. Then the second half (around BRI) I see a medieval village.

My Arms, Your Hearse - For some reason it feels as if it takes place in a cathedral or something of that nature, I also think of summer.

Still Life - I imagine it basically like the movie the crucible. I think it's set around the same era and that kind of atmosphere.

Blackwater Park - I imagine dark autumn days. Leaves changing color and cold is setting in.

That is the best descrition of what I see in my head when I listen to these albums.

 

[IanDork107]

Orchid strikes me as spring.
Morningrise is an autumn eve, with rain.
MAYH is a sun-beating-down summer day.
Still Life is another spring album.
Blackwater Park seems to be winter in the middle east.

 

[Staffan]

Originally posted by saturnix
except for morningrise, opeth mentions a season in the first line of the first song of every album...

orchid (in mist she was standing) "Seven milestones...Under a watching autumn eye"

mayh - (april ethereal) it's in the title, folks.

still life (the moor) "The sigh of summer upon my return"

blackwater park (leper affinity) "we enter winter once again"

in morningrise it comes in the second song hehe... Jaded and gaunt some september

 

[mindflesh]

Originally posted by Orchid

• Orchid - Long and dark late-autumn evenings / nights
• Morningrise - Dull, grey autumn day when it rains outside and you have nothing to do.
• MAYH - Blazing hot summer days
• Still Life - Late-summer / early-autumn evenings when it's still warm outside, but the days are short and you can feel the chill carried by the evening wind (ha! how poetic )
• Blackwater Park - Gentle, sunshiny winter days with glistening snow

Well said. Except that MAYH is a blazing hot summer day with a thunderstorm - Epilogue being that serene setting after the rain has stopped falling and the evening sun shines through the clouds - and Blackwater park is more reminiscent of a humid, misty autumn day in a marsh (as implied by the cover artwork).

 

[sands of the seas]

This is what my mind conjures up when i think of each album:

Orchid - I definitely picture forest here. Lots and lots of trees. It's dark and there is a fog about. Looking into the trees, you don't know what's beyond the frosty trunks, but it promises to be dark. (winter or autumn/fall)

Morningrise - The light from the sun dances on the horizon as you sit on the dewful grass upon the hill and watch it spill light across the world. (spring)

My Arms, Your Hearse - In the forest again, surrounded by shades of orange and red leaves, while a stream runs over cold, grey rocks at your side. The sun is high, but lends no warmth to your. (autumn/fall)

Blackwater Park - A few lines from The Funeral Portrait really play with my mind here, and although i get a strong sense of autumn from Harvest, the rest of the album is thick with the scent of winter.
You wait by the window
Morning's breath on the sill
Idle hands given another try
So you wait and you savour the moment
Outside the canvas turned white
Ruby eyes in the fog
Rain washing clean all the sins
A liquid gown that covers all
From this i, i feel as though i'm looking out of a window from a plain, old, white room. The light from the unseen sun, which is smothered in thick morning fog, pours in through the windows to lend the room all the light it needs. Outside the leaves are suffocated by the fog and dew. There are no apparent shadows, everything appears tonal, fading. Even my mind seems to fade into a state of... emptiness. (winter)

I left still life out because i just can't get a full feeling of the album from just Face of Melinda and Benighted. I do get a sense of Lord of The Rings/Robin Hood from Still Life though.
Orchid and Morningrise may also be a little unfair since i haven't heard more than two songs from each.