illbeleavinnow
Member
About your statement, I have a few things to say.
The tritone is undoubtebly a big part of Opeth's music, beacuse the interval is so dissonant and in many cases evil. Although Mikael uses it a lot, over the albums he used a varitey of other styles and intervals. I don't believe he stuck to the tritone so much that it's become repetative.
Well first of all, the acoustic sections aren't so bad, except for the skids (what I call the sound of shifting three or more frets very fast, it happens a lot in Damnation). And although your statement is somewhat true, it only refers to Orchid and Morningrise. I totally agree, those two albums were very structured, in a "heavy hard part, guitar fades away to mellow acoustic part". And if Mikael would've written another album like that I would've grown bored, but he didn't. He focused a lot more on creating emotion from the heavy parts, which can be seen a lot in MAYH. On MAYH and beyond, he doesn't write in a "heavy/mellow/heavy/mellow" style. The acoustic sections stop being a prelude or break from the heavy part, and becomes more of an addition to the song.
Not really a valid comment, it's simply opinion. If you don't like the growling, don't listen to death metal.
The pentatonic harmonies are found mostly in the solos, and Opeth doesn't do too many of them. Mikael himself said he loves them, but he's not Steve Vai. He actually didn't say Steve Vai but rather some other famous soloist, I forgot his name. =/
So back to the point, I don't know what you mean by "technical leads" so I can't really say anything about this except that the pentatonic melodies, when not used in solos, do go somewhere, because they are often followed by harmonic minor melodies. Opeth changes keys quite often, and that keeps the sound refreshing. It isn't all just pentatonic.
You can see my above post on the basslines, but nonetheless, anyone who says that any member of Opeth is untalented is a moron. The basslines are in fact a bit rudimentary, because if I'm not mistaken they mirror the guitars a lot, but the guitar drowns out the bass many times. When it matters to hear a bssline, Mendez/DeFarfalla does a good job of keeping it interesting. And don't get me started on the drumming. Lopez is one of the best drummers I've ever heard. He doesn't use blastbeats and isn't one-dimensional. He has a wide array of styles, and godammit, he's simply fucking amazing drummer.
This is purely opinion. I don't see how the guitar is unfocused, it's always creating melodies or blasting riffs that do go somewhere. If it was so unfocused, I don't see how 10 minute plus songs could be achieved. The guitar progressions themselves prove that the guitar is focused.
Well you can read the above stuff, I talked about the heavy/mellow/heavy/mellow concept earlier in this post.
I'll give you this. Orchid and Morningrise were similar. MAYH was unique (not only in Opeth's repertoire, but in all of metal). Still Life was unique, but in a way a cleaner version of MAYH. BWP was unique. Deliverance was somewhat like BWP, except less dynamic. And Damnation was unique. So in a way, Opeth created four completely different albums:
Orchid/Morningrise
MAYH/Still Life
BWP/Deliverance
Damnation
By putting certain albums together, I'm refering to the overall sound dynamically. There weren't many new concept introduced with Deliverance or Still Life, they were just continunations of the original albums (BWP and MAYH, respectively).
So there you have it. This is a cool thread, I like the discussion. Too bad there are people who can't read a whole post before flaming.
Peace,
Dan.
The tritone is undoubtebly a big part of Opeth's music, beacuse the interval is so dissonant and in many cases evil. Although Mikael uses it a lot, over the albums he used a varitey of other styles and intervals. I don't believe he stuck to the tritone so much that it's become repetative.
Well first of all, the acoustic sections aren't so bad, except for the skids (what I call the sound of shifting three or more frets very fast, it happens a lot in Damnation). And although your statement is somewhat true, it only refers to Orchid and Morningrise. I totally agree, those two albums were very structured, in a "heavy hard part, guitar fades away to mellow acoustic part". And if Mikael would've written another album like that I would've grown bored, but he didn't. He focused a lot more on creating emotion from the heavy parts, which can be seen a lot in MAYH. On MAYH and beyond, he doesn't write in a "heavy/mellow/heavy/mellow" style. The acoustic sections stop being a prelude or break from the heavy part, and becomes more of an addition to the song.
Not really a valid comment, it's simply opinion. If you don't like the growling, don't listen to death metal.
The pentatonic harmonies are found mostly in the solos, and Opeth doesn't do too many of them. Mikael himself said he loves them, but he's not Steve Vai. He actually didn't say Steve Vai but rather some other famous soloist, I forgot his name. =/
So back to the point, I don't know what you mean by "technical leads" so I can't really say anything about this except that the pentatonic melodies, when not used in solos, do go somewhere, because they are often followed by harmonic minor melodies. Opeth changes keys quite often, and that keeps the sound refreshing. It isn't all just pentatonic.
You can see my above post on the basslines, but nonetheless, anyone who says that any member of Opeth is untalented is a moron. The basslines are in fact a bit rudimentary, because if I'm not mistaken they mirror the guitars a lot, but the guitar drowns out the bass many times. When it matters to hear a bssline, Mendez/DeFarfalla does a good job of keeping it interesting. And don't get me started on the drumming. Lopez is one of the best drummers I've ever heard. He doesn't use blastbeats and isn't one-dimensional. He has a wide array of styles, and godammit, he's simply fucking amazing drummer.
This is purely opinion. I don't see how the guitar is unfocused, it's always creating melodies or blasting riffs that do go somewhere. If it was so unfocused, I don't see how 10 minute plus songs could be achieved. The guitar progressions themselves prove that the guitar is focused.
Well you can read the above stuff, I talked about the heavy/mellow/heavy/mellow concept earlier in this post.
I'll give you this. Orchid and Morningrise were similar. MAYH was unique (not only in Opeth's repertoire, but in all of metal). Still Life was unique, but in a way a cleaner version of MAYH. BWP was unique. Deliverance was somewhat like BWP, except less dynamic. And Damnation was unique. So in a way, Opeth created four completely different albums:
Orchid/Morningrise
MAYH/Still Life
BWP/Deliverance
Damnation
By putting certain albums together, I'm refering to the overall sound dynamically. There weren't many new concept introduced with Deliverance or Still Life, they were just continunations of the original albums (BWP and MAYH, respectively).
So there you have it. This is a cool thread, I like the discussion. Too bad there are people who can't read a whole post before flaming.
Peace,
Dan.
"shit chewer"... "full of coggy goodness"... "care less about being the BB and care more about finding some damn pussy" The things flame-inducing threads make people say. 
