I love Opeth, but can understand why others don't.....I didn't like them at first. When Blackwater Park came out, I started hearing murmurings of them and some swedish friends were always on at me to listen to them. Dom Lawson at Kerrang (at the time) had also told me to listen to them (I used to moderate on their forum years ago....met my other half through that forum)
I couldn't be arsed checking Opeth out at the time
When I did listen to them, it was at a gig in the Underworld on that Blackwater Park tour....supported by Katatonia. It was my 2nd 'date' with my now wife.....genius idea that, bring her to that gig when she's not a fan of that style at all but free tickets must be used. Anyway....I'd gone along mainly to see Katatonia, but took it as an opportunity to have a listen to Opeth. They came on and I just didn't get it. The place was rammed, and the crowd were well into them, but I just couldn't get into it. The changes in style during songs was a bit too much for me to enjoy.....change style between songs, sure, but during? Fuck that....gimme the crunch!
So, after they finish I'm heading out the venue and bump into Dom Lawson and he says 'so you finally got into them then?'....and he didn't like my reply of 'Nope. Comes across as Metal by numbers....here's a handbook of all things metal fans should like, let's whack as much of it as possible into one song'
Few weeks later, HMV have a sale on and I find Opeth's back catalogue on sale for £5 each....no Blackwater park, but I picked up 'My Arms, Your Hearse'
And fuck me....that's a cracker of an album. Love it. I got them at last, and went back next day to grab 'Still Life' and 'Morningrise', and followed that up at a later point with 'Orchid' and 'Blackwater Park'. Now that I had them all, I listened to them in the order of release and saw how they were progressing through their style.....and still are.
'My Arms...' is still my favourite album by them, as it appeals most to my death metal side, but the later albums ('Ghost Reveries', 'Watershed') are great too. The only "bad" album is that fecker 'Blackwater Park'...I just don't like it
So, in short....I love them. But I can see why people don't because I didn't either.....and I can still hear why people wouldn't like them now.