Opeth's Last 3 Albums Have Been Fantastic

[Reign in Acai]

Here's my take on things. My first album ever was deliverance. I heard the song deliverance off of launch.com after hearing many great things about the band. After a couple listens I purchased the album. I put it on and i'm like what is this shit. I wasn't much into growl's back then. And I didn't like the song wreath intil just recently. Anyhow I discarded the album for a long time. Then deciding to give opeth a second chance I purchased damnation. Nothing hit me except windowpane/ in my time of need. The rest of the album I felt was throw away. Then I have no idea why lol. Destiny perhaps. I kept on giving opeth chances. Now the time had come. I downloaded all of still life and the song harvest. Fell In love. Damnation started to hook me. Then deliverance minus the song wreath. Purchases of morningrise and blackwater park soon followed. Those albums especially bwp blew me away. Then I purchased orchid which kicked my ass straight out the gate and mayh which took a couple listens to swallow. All 7 albums are fucking masterpieces in my mind. Some take more time than other's. It's like having 7 kids. You don't hate the youngest kid from being different from the oldest born do you? I would definetaly get sick of opeth if they put out 7 orchids or 7 deliverances. All good things come in variety. How screwed up would the world be if women only came in blonde or brown hair? Think about folks!

 

[the alumnus]

fuck YES, though I don't think they like his production so much. some guy said he asked mike about crimson 2 and mike said it sounded like shit.

heck, the pure opeth/fredrick nordstrom collaboration turned out amazingly well. i think the best pure production on an opeth album was the my arms and still life moments. though swano has a way of producing an atmosphere that i miss. so raw and poignant, like he did with dissection. i'd much rather have fredrick than andy sneap.

 

[TheFourthHorseman]

It's not like Andy Sneap produces anything for Opeth, alumnus.

I have no probs with the production on the latest 3, I like clear production very much. All the criticism is towards the music, and it's not like I think Opeth suddenly started sucking. Just became less good for me.

 

[the alumnus]

It's not like Andy Sneap produces anything for Opeth, alumnus.

I have no probs with the production on the latest 3, I like clear production very much. All the criticism is towards the music, and it's not like I think Opeth suddenly started sucking. Just became less good for me.

oh, i know that. but now he's starting to get involved in opeth's production, starting with the lamentations dvd. and his production style sucks. dull, dead, lifeless... just listen to nevermore's dead heart in a dead world. so stale and sterile...a totally bland production.

 

[BurningSky]

first off i cant take anyone seriously who has the funeral portrait as their fourth favorite song... that aside, its hard to even compare the early Opeth cds and what they have today. MAYH was the turning point, and alot of what we heard up until D & D were based on that format.. chords with harmony leads, acoustic bridges, and either back to chords or nice outros. Deliverence is a pretty cool cd, but as a whole its weaker than their previous albums, most likely as people have said, because of the lack of preparation for the songs... However, Deliverence and A fair judgement, are amazing songs. THe acoustic bridge in A fair judgement is one of the most amazing things you'll ever hear. Still Life, I still believe, is their best album, because of the relation between every song, and still the diversity amongst the riffs and musical themes. Blackwater Park is also an amazing album front to back. You can tell he was truly musically inspired when he came up with that album because its like the songs wrote themselves, theyre seemless. Damnation is also an amazing album just very different from all their other ones... Its actually one of my personal favorites because its just so chill (and for all you cannibus reapers, spin that thing when youre under the influence.. holy shit). But i'm really curious as to where they go from here because another album like Deliverence would be ok, but i would like to see another progression. They've done so on every album so I'm sure this will be another side of Opeth. I heard something about an open tuning song so that should be interesting. Cant wait to see what they come out with next.

 

[Reign in Acai]

Funeral Portrait fucking rules. I dunno if it's in my top 5...But definetaly top 10.

 

[AndICried]

ATM I'm thinking I prefer morningrise-mayh-still life to deliverance.

I do like quite a bit of damnation.

I'll listen to Deliverance again tonight, an conclude on whether I like it or not.

 

[wankerness]

Hmmm, stale and sterile...I'd say that description of the production applies to Deliverance, but not Blackwater Park...Blackwater Park really sounds lush sometimes, and the distorted stuff sounds MONSTROUS (as do the vocals), in sharp contrast to Deliverance.

ABOUT THE FUNERAL PORTRAIT:

That's one of my favorite songs by them, it's incredibly fun to play too!

 

[estimate]

What the fuck? I think it's opposite wankerness, concerning the vocals.

And about The Funeral Portrait. Well. It's not that interesting. Guess it's fun for guitar players. "YEAH, RIFf, AND HEAR, ANOTHER RIFF, ANOTHER RIFF, ANOTHER RIFF, ANOTHER RIFF, A SOLO, ANOTHER RIFF, ANOTHER RIFF, AN OUTRO SOLO. Ok. Well. I like the soloes. And .. some riff. But the song is so...basic. Sorry if I press anyones toes here. But my toes are blue, so I guess I'm just taking revenge or something.

Taste is all.

 

[BurningSky]

yeah, i play guitar too, theres just nothing about the funeral portrait that makes me say "HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWESOME"... the riffs are cool and stuff, but its not one of their best songs

 

[Ermz]

Hmmm, stale and sterile...I'd say that description of the production applies to Deliverance, but not Blackwater Park...Blackwater Park really sounds lush sometimes, and the distorted stuff sounds MONSTROUS (as do the vocals), in sharp contrast to Deliverance.

ABOUT THE FUNERAL PORTRAIT:

That's one of my favorite songs by them, it's incredibly fun to play too!

Amen.

There is something dry about the production on Deliverance.. something about the entire sound that alienates me from the album. Blackwater Park may have been highly compressed and end up sounding grainy on alot of sound systems, but generally the production is awesome and always full and 'lush' as wanker just put it.

I put on The Leper Affinity today, on my better sound system and I almost cracked the hardest boner I've ever had... that song is devastatingly fucking heavy and the production goes a long way to complement that. Where are all those groovy-assed riffs we saw here and on the title track Blackwater Park... that kind of awesome slugged-out groove metal. No, I'm not reffering to the Morbid Angel ripoff that loops for over a minute at the start of Master's Apprentices.

 

[AndICried]

Ok, I just listened through Deliverance.

Parts that I <3ed:

- The percussion throughout the album is well done. Not spectacular or anything, but very fitting. BTPISIO in particular included a lot of imaginative rhythms.
- Most of deliverance
- The keyboard waltz passage near the end of BTPISIO
- The first 30 seconds or so of wreath
- The artwork!
- For absent friends

Parts I felt sucked

- A great deal of master's apprentice
- The suicide inducing chord sequence at the end of deliverance
- A lot of the album's solos
- A lot of Wreath
- A fair judgement (I just don't really dig most of it)

I'm not sure what it is, but after listening to the album from beginning to end, I felt that although there were some great parts (Deliverance is overall a wonderful piece), there were too many sections that didn't purposefully go anywhere. I wouldn't say it's a bad album, but equally I wouldn't say it's a very good album. I just feel that they've already written better/more original material, so overall, it was unneeded.

However, I really liked Damnation, so I don't think Deliverance symbolises the beginning of the end.

 

[ViCyniC]

I don't enjoy the sequence of the songs in BWP, it's not not as enjoyable for me to listen all the way through like the other Opeth albums, including Deliverance. I personally find the production fitting for an album like Deliverance, which is more toward traditional Death metal than anything else. Deliverance represents some of the most enjoyable solos I've heard from Opeth, especially from AFJ, and the last two tracks.

 

[ChrisEmerson]

using production as an excuse for not liking a cd is just gay. theres nothing wrong with the production on the early albums, its not like its st anger or anything.

 

[Hondo]

The repetitive stuff on Deliverance doesn't bug me. The production is ok too. But you can tell a little that it's a product of not enough time and too little sleep, like a paper done at 4am the morning before it was due. I do like it a lot, though, and sometimes when I listen to their other albums, there are things that I miss from it.

Their first 4 albums felt kind of dark and obscure and unreachable, though. I miss that. It might be partly that I didn't know anything about the band back then, and that BWP was the first one to come out since I'd gotten into them. They did drop a lot of the folky stuff with that one, so that could be it too.

 

[Minion520]

Still Life is the best album ever made in any genre of music ever, period. Everyone millisecond of every song is irreplaceable and absolutley perfect.

 

[PowerMetalGlory]

Overall, though, I think Still Life and My Arms, Your Hearse and Blackwater Park are definitely the best in terms of transitions and emotional content. The first two albums, while great, are just sort of riff collages (with the exception of the song To Bid You Farewell).

Precisely.

 

[Sten]

Blackwater park and deliverance are the best albums. The more extrem the better. Masters ap... is one of the best tunes ever made.
Basta!!

 

[The Black Canvas]

Masters ap... is one of the best tunes ever made.
Basta!!

I agree that Masters Apprentices is a great song.

 

[Vehemens]

Damnation is one of my favourite albums, especially the chorus in 'In My Time Of Need'. In fact, the whole album. I used to not like 'Weakness' or 'Closure', but after putting my stereo on random and lying down to go to sleep after being high when I heard those songs they sounded awesome. The whole fucking album did. Love the echoed chanting kind of singing at the end of 'Weakness', the afore-mentioned chorus of 'In My Time Of Need', 'Hope Leaves', the "In the rays of the sun..." line and the outro of 'Closure'. It's just a magical album.

I like the simplicity of Deliverance. I love the acoustic interlude in 'Master's Apprentices' with the echoed effect over the top, and the "Soothing trance..." verse. The song 'Deliverance' has really nice moments too, like the mellow "Walk with me..." verse. Although what's with the really strange (and quite freaky) talking/singing/echoey noises at the end of 'By The Pain I See In Others'? Also heard that for the first time when I was stoned and couldn't be bothered changing the song and it freaked me right out...just thought "What the fuck was that!?" Hehe good times though

De'ja vu...already posted this haven't I...?

As posted by someone else before, on Deliverance the songs are easily distinguishable. By now I've listened to all the albums a lot, but there's still songs (on Still Life and My Arms, Your Hearse mainly) that blend together and sound sort of the same. I've never really got into Still Life and thought it was brilliant. 'Serenity Painted Death' yes. The "Searching my way to perplextion..." line in 'Godhead's Lament' is really cool too, but on the whole I've never listened to it from start-to-finish enough to really like it.

But lately I've been listening to Morningrise a lot. Even though there's no set concept on the album, there's plainly a linking theme to the songs - all so sad and a bit depressing. Suit my mood really well . Especially (obviously) 'To Bid You Farewell', the acoustic part in 'The Night And The Silent Water' where Mikael sings "Am I like them?...." and I really like the verse in Nectar where it ends with "...I swear I will always love you". Beautiful lyrics in that verse. In regards to production, I think Orchid and Morningrise actually suit the production style of Dan Swanö. The vocal and riffing styles need that reverb overtone.

I don't think that Blackwater Park and Deliverance "mark the beginning of the end" for Opeth at all. Just like My Arms, Your Hearse meant the end of the reverby production and screamier vocals, the latest albums are simply a new twist of the road for the band.