Porcelain Heart

[bahadur]

Well I have heard the songs once and I can say that they correspond to Opeth qualities of songwriting and performing. It is still classy and I still believe that Opeth has no shitty songs. Some songs are just good, others are masterpieces.

 

[hibernal_dream]

The amount of screeches at the acoustic guitar parts has really passed the limits - I don't know why Mike plays the guitar like that - is that so hard not to make these screeches? Do they think that it adds something to the music, a more "real" feel or something? Is it impossible to rid of it when editing the sound at the studio? A lot of Opeth' music has these screeches at the acoustic parts, I absolutely hate them, it's such an unpleasant sound! And in "Porcelain Heart" the amount and volume of it totally ruin the song, instead of enjoying the acoustic parts, I get really annoyed, it's like waiting for the inevitable punches in the face, which keep on coming. Listening to it with headphones is the worst. Other bands have the screeches too, but no so many and not that loud in order to ruin the song.

Pure idiocy

 

[Baza]

Pure idiocy

Please explain yourself.

 

[hibernal_dream]

Go listen to the best classical guitar players in the world and you will hear the fingers sliding on the frets. What you want is artificial sounding music like Matchbox 20 or something.

 

[metal_wrath]

<< hasn't heard any of these songs yet

 

[bahadur]

Dude probably doesn't play guitar.

 

[nadavnaz]

People hate Harlequin Forrest? You mean the best song on GR?

W00t? Such an awesome song.

 

[Baza]

Go listen to the best classical guitar players in the world and you will hear the fingers sliding on the frets. What you want is artificial sounding music like Matchbox 20 or something.

Well, I've heard some of that stuff, and they have some sliding noise, but not to the extent of "Porcelain Heart". And I listen to progressive rock mostly, I don't even know who Matchbox 20 are.

 

[Le_Shrike]

W00t? Such an awesome song.

Ditto. It's been my favourite track off of GR since I got it. Granted, I love the album and Hounds/Mire/Perdition are close contestants, but I still love HF. I can see why though. As Westvleteren pointed out, the "vocal masturbation" part is very unlike what Opeth had done before. I'm not saying that those people are narrow-minded. Different strokes etc. But it's quite obvious that this is a direction that some parts of the fan-base will dislike.

As for me, I fucking love it. Porcelain Heart just clicks with me. Despite the fact that TGC is one of my least favourite Opeth-songs, but the chord-progression worked great here. I really love the slower more epic riffs. Reminds me of A Fair Judgement. And as for "sweety sweety", I always thought that was one of Opeth's most defining features, the ability to go from ultra soft to ultra heavy. I get chills every time I get to the "wallow in shame/went far away" lines.

Watershed is definitely looking like a winner to me.

 

[nadavnaz]

The one thing I find hard to swallow with the lotus eater is the keyboard passage... Kinda DT don't you think? The riff in the end where it breaks down to the people talking is pure fucking genious though, always puts me back on track after the keyboard thing.

 

[akerfeldt.lover.nr.one.]

"The Lotus Eaters and Heir Apparent are 10/10 awesome songs, but Porcelain Heart is a pretty lame one (take no offence Mike)."

+1
but it might just need some time to take in, wait and see ^^

 

[Kirkfjell]

The one thing I find hard to swallow with porcelain heart is the keyboard passage... Kinda DT don't you think? The riff in the end where it breaks down to the people talking is pure fucking genious though, always puts me back on track after the keyboard thing.

You must be talking about The Lotus Eater ...

 

[Kirkfjell]

harlequin forest has a good beginning, a good ending, and a fucking awful middle, the suckitude of which is highlighted most clearly by akerfeldt's christina aguilera vocal masturbation in the 'it's all false pretension' part

Harlequin Forest is awesome! And the "It's all false pretension"-part that you are refering to is actually my favourite section of the song

 

[nadavnaz]

You must be talking about The Lotus Eater ...

Oops, yes I was talking about TLE

 

[The Don]

Dunno about the ball-sucking but i have to agree with you 200% here. I liked it at first but now i think It's a very shitty song.
I was quite impressed to see so many posters dissing the drum fill because it looked like they never heard a drummer add something non linear in a small part of a song in their whole lives. I wasn't defending the song, even if some dickface (Ometh) mistook me for a fanboy.
The fucking TGC melody revival is the worst step that Mike could take with his songwriting, and there is not a single interesting hook or dynamic riff in the entire thing. It's a trainwreck of a song, the vocals starting at 5:00 sound too sweety sweety, like Tori Akerfeldt or something, people love that part and i don't know why.

The Lotus Eaters and Heir Apparent are 10/10 awesome songs, but Porcelain Heart is a pretty lame one (take no offence Mike).

I totally agree about the lack of a dynamic riff or anything really noteworthy. One thing I forgot to mention was that the only part of the song I actually enjoyed was the drum fill! Tori Akerfeldt lol it's really sad though listening to April Ethereal now and realizing your favorite metal band of the last 5 years is turning into a progressive outfit whose single is softer and more uninteresting than the new In Flames album. Well, I don't know that may be going too far. Either way, I've listened to The Lotus Eater more and I think it's a great track, but I expect the other 6 or 7 tracks on this CD to be much more death metal than either of these songs. Seriously and those falsettos sound like Mike trying to whimper something directly after he just got kicked in the balls for FINALLY making a bad song. Heir Apparent sounds pretty damn sick though even if it's a shitty video on YouTube. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Rezard]

Wow, just listened to Porcelain Heart and Lotus Eater, honestly I wasn't expecting such great quality.
I'm all for more clean vocals so I couldn't be more pleased.
Axe is doing a fucking great job too btw.
I can't really understand people complaning about the drum fill in Porcelain Heart, I mean, it's been nearly two years since we're expecting a new album, we get over 16 minutes of it, and people are shitting over 15 seconds of drum fills ?? Come on guys.
The only downpart I can find is that, that's it, between Heir Apparent, TLE and Porcelain Heart, I ruined half of the album.
Also, some people say Opeth is getting 'softer' with the falsetto singing thing and all, but you seem to forget that Mike's influences aren't all about metal ; we've been warned that this record would be different, well it is, and I can't say how I'm stunned by the songwriting which keeps getting better and better, there are so many things I wasn't expecting at all.. and well, that's exactly what I'm expecting from them.
Oh and yeah, you can say I'm on Mike's balls and so on, but trust me, if these songs were shitty I would have said it exactly the same way.

 

[Gëist]

I mean, it's been nearly two years since we're expecting a new album, we get over 16 minutes of it, and people are shitting over 15 seconds of drum fills ??

Well... for an album I'll listen all over again for the next two years, I expect those 15 seconds to be good, because 15 + 15 + 15 + 15....

 

[Koi]

what is happening, i like porcelain

 

[Rezard]

Well... for an album I'll listen all over again for the next two years, I expect those 15 seconds to be good, because 15 + 15 + 15 + 15....

Oui enfin c'est pas non plus choquant, c'est pas comme si ils avaient foutu un solo d'harmonica en plein milieu d'un méchant riff.
Perso j'aime bien ce passage vu que ça casse un peu la mélodie principale et je pense que c'est ce qu'ils voulaient faire...
(Petit HS en français, j'espère que ça passera).

 

[kendoji]

I like the drum fill, but think that PH is a fairly weak song by Opeth standards