So, how'd you react to your first listening experience with Opeth?

[nadavnaz]

First song I heared was Wreath. I liked it, but didn't adore the heavy vocals. After a few months of listening I liked it all They're my favourite band now

 

[Pethical]

2001, heard drapery on a metal hammer compilation cd. thought it was pretty good but a bit long , didn't think twice about it though until i downloaded a demon bootleg and was blown away

 

[Esplendor]

my girlfriend at the time gave me 'Still Life' and it was love on first sight!
next was BWP I think..not sure anymore

btw, I just convinced one of my friends to but Still Life and BWP

now he's hooked

 

[stefan86]

My first Opeth song was The Leper Affinity in 2002 or so. At first the song structures we're a bit too "big" for me, but I eventually fell in love with the whole BWP cd.

 

[in_absentia]

same here, sis!

Of course!

Well, truth is a friend asked me... "Do you want to hear a REAL metal song?" (at that time i was only listening to stuff lie dredg and Metallica) i said "Fuck yeah!" He said download Drapery, and i did, AND THEN I FELL IN LOVE!! But the song that got me into growling was Master's Apprentices. But i didn't hear that until later on. After Draper, i heard Fair Judgement, and from those 2 songs, i declared them my fave bands haha

 

[sundance]

Currently listening to Deliverance, the song. And it's still quite an experience. I never thought, that there's a band which can manage so mellow and brutal songs at the same time mixing growls, heavy riffs, normal singing and smooth melodies to produce great compositions.
Every song is an adventure to some extend.

And at first I didn't like them. It was too brutal for me. A few months later it grew on me, and then I got myself Damnation and Blackwater Park. Liked BWP and disliked Damnation, it was too calm for me ironically. I bought Lamentations and got into Damnation then. Now I own every album except Orchid which isn't accessible for me. I don't like the old sound. If they re-recorded it, perhaps it would grow on me then.

 

[Opethian666]

I bought Blackwater Park after I had read many good reviews. At the time, I was still quite young and had only just begun to explore metal. My favorite bands at the time were Rage Against The Machine, Machine Head and Pantera, to give you an idea. When I first listened to it, I didn't really know what to think. I could find no structure in the songs, the weird melodies confused me, I didn't really like the growls etc... Overall the album left me lukewarm, but I knew there was something special in there, and I would listen to it again from time to time. Then, after a few listens, certain parts began to click with me, and I started seeing the structure in the songs and began to adjust to the strange melodies and growls. In hindsight, of course, this is pretty ridiculous, but at the time I had never heard anything remotely progressive or complex, and so Opeth was something very weird and confusing to me. It took some time to adjust, but nowadays Opeth is my favorite band (probably because it was the first group of their level of awesomeness I discovered, and has some kind of sentimental value).

 

[Braighs]

"Where have you been all my life?"

 

[Seance]

i love when i see people say how they hated the growls at first, i was the opposite, for me i first heard credence and some other clean song and i hated it "WTF??? this isnt metal", and i had a pretty bad opinion of them until someone pointed out that there were heavier songs a few monthes later

hehe yea, it's interesting to see the different approaches/outcomes to different people. I was actually into metal... but more like the type of traditional thrash bands in the vein of Anthrax, old Metallica, Megadeth, Testament, etc., and I thought the death metal style of vocals sucked, so I didn't like Opeth.

then, like I said, a few months later, the vocals grew on me. once I got over that, I was able to actually give the music itself a chance

Opeth was the band that gatewayed me into tolerating and digging more extreme styles of metal, and ironically were also the spark in the chain reaction which has almost completely moved me away from metal altogether at this point

 

[wareena21]

my friend bought still life when it first came out (1999), i then took his advice and borrowed it off him. after sitting back and putting the cd on i was amazed at how good these guys were. i can ever remember shedding a tear as i heard the beautiful movement of face of melinda. since then opeth has remained a staple of my musical tastes and will be for the rest of my life.

 

[S<issors]

Weird story: first time I heard Opeth, it actually got me into Mastodon.

See, me and a guy were trading music online sort of a one-upsmanship thing. He mentioned Behemoth, and my response was, "oh, yeah, I've heard of them- don't they have that album, Leviathan...?" Obviously, I was really thinking of Mastodon.

Anyway, the trading went on for a while, I got a bunch of Opeth and he got a bunch of Dream Theater and old school In Flames (fair trade, right? ), but the whole thing inspired me to go find "that Leviathan album," so I got into Mastodon and hardly listened to the stuff he gave me at all. I just sort of skipped through it, heard the growls, was like "ayup, death metal" and promptly forgot about it.

Couple of weeks later, I was at a concert for a band off the Roadrunner label (Dragonforce, and I don't give a shit if you hate 'em ) and somebody mentioned Opeth again... I think they referred to them as "the Swedish Dream Theater" or something along those lines.

Went back home, really listened to 'em, and messed up a perfectly good pair of pants.

And that's my story.

 

[whenharlequinsfall]

i asked some metal guy in my class wat he was listening to and he said "Opeth - Demon of the Fall". i hadnt heard nething by them so went home and downloaded "Death Whispered a Lullaby" and was blown away, turns out the song had only been out one week. anyways, a month later i had forgotten about them until my media player came up with the track while it was on shuffle, i remembered how awesome they were, and went to download another track "Demon of the Fall". I didnt think it was possible that this was the same band, so the next track i downloaded was drapery falls, and the day after that i went out and brought their entire back catalogue.


This band makes me have to change my boxers

 

[Jester-Race]

I agree with you S<issors, old in flames is so fucking kick ass. Nothing like Dark Tranquility Or old school in flames (boy did they go gay after clayman... jesus).

In flames was actually a stepping stone to me liking opeth, I listened to jester race (moonshield anyone?) a LONG time ago and it seems like it's been forever since I first heard it but the melody with an amazing death growl singer like him made me realize how fucking amazing Opeth is, and even though I love In Flames, After I heard Orchid I shat myself in disbelief. BTW panic attack by dream theater is one of the most amazing and utterly groundbreaking progressive metal songs ever made I believe, unfortunately they arent as good as their "alive" or "images and words" days, and train of thought is good offering, and octivarium is mediocre to me at best.

 

[wwallinga]

a few years ago by now... hated it because of the growl vocals, then came around a few months later

.

 

[LieToPurify]

Heard Demon of the Fall at my friends, I was already into metal so I loved it instantly.

 

[CorpseDeception]

I flipping through music choice, and foung nothing of interest, so I put it on the metal channel and let it play. After a while this really great song came on, so I wrote down the band name and cd title. The promtly lost the paper it was written on. I don't remember what song it was. Some time later I was flipping through a selection of music videos and came to The Grand Conjuration. Vaguely remembering the band name form ... somewhere, I turned it on. I only half listened to it, so it wasn't a mind-blowing experience, but the drumming got stuck in my head. It drove me crazy for weeks until I finally bought GR. At first I wasn't all that impressed, but then after listening for a while, my regrettably narrow opened up and I couldn't get enough of it. I bought BWP soon thereafter.

 

[Slayer101]

I first heard Morningrise and to be completely honest I didn't like it all that much. I really liked the vocals and the riffs but what through me off was the bad production. I eventually got past that and now it is ome of my favorites. I then got Blackwater Park and fell in love and have been hooked ever since.

 

[mylovedenied]

I was about 14, and was mostly into nu-metal at the time. I went to my grandpa's 80th birthday party and one of my 2nd cousins or something started talking music with me. I recognized the System of a Down and KMFDM CDs he had, and told him what I liked. He said "That's alright, but I gotta get you into the heavier stuff." I was very intrigued, so he decided to show me.

He gave me one headphone (earbud) and took out "Deliverance" and put on the title track. I liked the riffs, and the vocals, and the overall feel of the song. It wasn't love at first site, but I liked it. He also showed me some Cradle of Filth and Blind Guardian. I went home, and kinda had it in the back of my head. Eventually, after a few days, I remembered and downloaded a bunch of those 3 bands. I slowly grew to like them all more and more, mostly Opeth and BG. Eventually, after playing Deliverance (the album) about 20 times while in Yellowstone, I started to really really like Opeth! And the rest is history.

 

[The Kinslayer]

The Drapery Falls - love from first listening.

 

[in_absentia]

Same here