Reading that John Chedsey's reviews on Opeth... well, he really seems to contradict himself alot. Maybe he wrote all those reviews over the span of 6 years or something, but he really seems to go back on a point and say a different thing quite often.
Like here
By now, most of you are aware of Opeth's rise to prominence, strangely built on a series of meandering, pointless releases.
this is after saying
"So," you ask, "how do you really feel about this album? And don't hold back." Funny you should ask. This is downright one of the best pieces of work in extreme metal.
in his Orchid review.
Now I'm not sure if this is just a guy that's a Morningrise/Orchid fanboy who's complete overall opinion of Opeth has been morphed by them moving into the style portrayed by the albums MAYH onwards or whatnot. Whichever it is, his opinions definately aren't consistant throughout his reviews and I have trouble taking him seriously.
If you want to see a proper negative review of an Opeth album.. check out Rahul Joshi's review of Morningrise on the same page. I tend to agree with most of what he says, and it's understandable that he feels this way towards the album, as for the most part it's true. Morningrise really is a jumble of riffs mashed together and masked as 'epics'... which is why I think the band is veering more and more into a direction which holds firmer song structures. But obviously with that, you have people like Johnny boy above who get bored of the music if it has any form of structure then go back in their future reviews and slant off the band's previous efforts which they admit to having enjoyed, yet now call a bunch of meandering, pointless efforts.
To get back to the thread. What you're saying is just too generic. I'd need to see that formed up into a solid arguement, by someone who actually has passion towards what they're striving for.
One thing there I can address is the guitar playing though... I don't care if Mikael's solos are even all chromatics, as long as he is able to execute them as integral parts to the songs, which add the kind of character and flavour we have seen all throughout their career. I personally don't care if he broke into a wankfest every 2 odd minutes if it suited the song.
And the bottom line is... there seems to be two distinct viewpoints on Opeth. The devoted fanboys (yours truly) and the jumble of generally very spiteful people that call Opeth a boring mish-mash of riffs. Now one of these sides enjoys Opeth's music to a great degree, almost immeasurable compared to other music that they are into, and the other side doesn't... so, by that, I know who's missing out the most
.
Retrospect: Uh, sorry people, I see I've kinda strayed from everything in that post. It's late over here (or should I say early, haha) and I just felt like one of them good old rants.
