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

[Septembers Marc]

I then learned to play Closure and When on guitar to get more sex from the girlfriend and I became addicted.

Haha. I borrowed Blackwater Park from a friend back in late 2001 and was expecting another typical 90's deathmetal band. I was heavily into Anathema's "A Fine Day to Exit" at the time and was pleasantly suprised to hear Opeth's mellow parts!! They coincided perfectly next to the well-played and non-standard deathmetal parts of their music. After hearing "Harvest" for the first time I suddenly realized I was listening to something quite unique. Aggressive but with depth. Mellow but not cheesy. Sophisticated but not arty-farty. Progressive but not Dream Theatre-y. :Smug: I've been addicted to Opeth ever since.

 

[Septembers Marc]

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.

Great!!! I'm into metal since "The number of the Beast" from Maiden which came out in '82 or something? So Opeth can be a revelation at all times, eh?

 

[DarkGift]

I then learned to play Closure and When on guitar to get more sex from the girlfriend and I became addicted.

lol

I first heard Bleak, sent by a friend, and at first I actually liked the growling parts better than the clean parts, even though I just listened to In Flames and Dimmu Borgir before that (and also always have liked clean singing and acoustic guitars). Didn´t listen to the track for a while, but then I heard The Drapery Falls and the Leper Affinity, and I thought they fucking kicked ass!

 

[Erion]

It was about 5 years ago, so I was 11 then. One evening my brother came home from class and told me a friend had lend him a CD of a band he never heard before. It was Opeth, and the album was Still Life. We put the CD on the player and listened till the end at once. He said it was very good. For me, it was MORE than very good: I discovered the best thing on Earth (after my girlfriend ^^'). I took it to my bedroom and played it about 5 times one after the other, until all the songs struked me. Since that first time of "The Moor" (nowadays, my favourite song, along with "Serenity Painted Death"), I've bought all 8 CDs and the DVD, and learned how to play (on the guitar) and sing (at the same time, as my idol Mikael ) almost all their songs.
Of course, they're my favourite band and my favourite everything!!! I wouldn't be the same without Opeth!!!!!!!!

 

[Hypnos]

back in 1996, i dropped my jaw and thought how awesome 'In Mist She Was Standing' is

 

[Belligerent]

What were you doing ******? Peyote? Guess Opeth would sound good on peyote

 

[Belligerent]

Actually Opeth would sound good on my deathbed

 

[King Richard]

Honestly, I thought they were shit for a while. The first time I listened to them was when I dled Black Rose Immortal. I looked at the song length and said "20 minutes?!?! WTF THIS IS FUCKING GAY!" Eventually I stopped acting like an idiot. Went out and bought Deliverance and Blackwater Park. Listened to them a few times, didn't really get impressed much. Then one night I was half asleep and put them in my cd player on a whim and it clicked with me. And thus begins the love for the band.

 

[Belligerent]

Honestly, I thought they were shit for a while. The first time I listened to them was when I dled Black Rose Immortal. I looked at the song length and said "20 minutes?!?! WTF THIS IS FUCKING GAY!" Eventually I stopped acting like an idiot. Went out and bought Deliverance and Blackwater Park. Listened to them a few times, didn't really get impressed much. Then one night I was half asleep and put them in my cd player on a whim and it clicked with me. And thus begins the love for the band.

EVERY metalhead should enjoy them, I understand how it might take awhile to click but once it does your hooked. Damnation is on my father's playlist as well....I have been raving about them for at least 5 yrs. now and they never get old to me as most bands do after awhile.

 

[Katatonic89]

My first reaction was to the song Bleak and it was "Wtf is this shit" I came around some days after that

 

[-^Elrohir^-]

hello, im new in this forum...hope to make new friends here...



the first song i listened of opeth was -ghost of perdition, on december 2005...i just can't belive what i was listening, it was amazing, almost perfection, and when i listened other songs..actually all songs ^^ i didn't think that it was almost perfection, just they doesn't have anything wrong
just amazing!

 

[nizzon]

A friend introduced them to me around 2002 i think.
I thought the riffs kinda sucked, wasnt heavy enough, I hated most of the open chords and it was just too much going on at once. I loved the growls but thought some of the cleans was too cheesy.
I really couldnt understand what he thought was so fucking fantastic about this.

He practicly forced the CDs into my hands, "here, borrow 'em for a while".
The only tracks i kinda liked then was A Fair Judgement and Harvest, but after a few weeks it all just grew on me, and now 5 years later i seriously feel like i will never ever get tired of their music.
Mike is a genius.

 

[CorpseDisposal]

At first, i just downloaded a bunch for no reason like a year ago.
and then
i slowly listened to them late at night, midnight, 1 AM
And i was like Wow
how do you make such heavy metal turn into acoustic stuff in the same song.
And i love them nowwww

 

[WTF555666]

"that was gay", to be fair though I was watching the video for The Grand Conjuration, I bought Ghost Reveries about 5 months later becuase of all the good reviews.

 

[Hell Awaits Us All]

I thought grand conjuration and ghost of perdition were fuckin' br0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000tal, it was mind-blowing how heavy these two songs were

 

[Netherworld]

I didn't know what to think of Opeth at first, the first track I ever heard of Opeth was Advent and I was like... wow.. these are long tracks. I liked the guitar and the vocals alot, and it just grew I guess.

 

[slapnut002]

opeth was the first band i heard with growls..and i didn't really like it at first.
but i love the music so i kept listening to it and i eventually began to love the vocals. i still can't get over their musicianship..it's insane

 

[beast from the east]

August 03...I had been hearing about this great band Opeth and how they mix DM with old style 70's Prog, which sounded really interesting. So I bought Damnation. The first listen I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by the top-notch musicianship. I couldn't get enough of Damnation, so I decided to give Deliverance a try. Since then, Deliverance has become my all-time favorite metal song, and Opeth my all-time favorite band. There is no other out there to compare with them.

 

[Jester-Race]

A friend introduced them to me around 2002 i think.
I thought the riffs kinda sucked, wasnt heavy enough, I hated most of the open chords and it was just too much going on at once. I loved the growls but thought some of the cleans was too cheesy.
I really couldnt understand what he thought was so fucking fantastic about this.

Don't take this too heavy but saying the riffs sucked sure made you realize how bad your music taste was in the first place. It happened to me and I realize how much shit over the years I have heard and thought was good was a waste of my time in comparison to discovering Opeth.

Or was it the the fact that you thought the riffs sucked because they were way too complex and insane for you? Just saying because the first time I heard Demon of the Fall it instantly put every single death/black/shit wannabe singing band to shame (dimmu borgir, immortal, especially in flames, oooh boy how i regret not discovering opeth first) and totally desecrated everything I thought about music. Then I heard another song. Then another, and another, and then I realize these guys weren't fucking human. Imagine any motherfucking singer out there today who can do a vocal range like Mikael. It's possible, but I've heard so many bands try it and it ends up being shitty/horrible. If you really think Opeth wasn't hard when you first heard them, I pretty much guarantee you were listening to their other side, nothing short of heaven being made in man form.

It's okay, we all went through this stage. Why else would we be here?

 

[nizzon]

Don't take this too heavy but saying the riffs sucked sure made you realize how bad your music taste was in the first place. It happened to me and I realize how much shit over the years I have heard and thought was good was a waste of my time in comparison to discovering Opeth.

Or was it the the fact that you thought the riffs sucked because they were way too complex and insane for you? Just saying because the first time I heard Demon of the Fall it instantly put every single death/black/shit wannabe singing band to shame (dimmu borgir, immortal, especially in flames, oooh boy how i regret not discovering opeth first) and totally desecrated everything I thought about music. Then I heard another song. Then another, and another, and then I realize these guys weren't fucking human. Imagine any motherfucking singer out there today who can do a vocal range like Mikael. It's possible, but I've heard so many bands try it and it ends up being shitty/horrible. If you really think Opeth wasn't hard when you first heard them, I pretty much guarantee you were listening to their other side, nothing short of heaven being made in man form.

It's okay, we all went through this stage. Why else would we be here?

I wouldnt say i had bad music-taste before since I still listen to most of the stuff i used to listen to back then. Opeths music was just too complex for me in the beginning, definitely. But getting into them and realizing you can learn to love something like this really opened my eyes(ears) for more music and I have broaden my taste quite a bit since then. But yeah, a few bands i used to like have also lost their magic to me, for sure.

Its a bit annoying when you introduce Opeth to someone and they slag them off, and you know that if they just gave it a chance to grow they would probably love it, but most people dont even give it a try, bah their loss i guess.

Another really funny thing is that nowdays when i discover new bands that i like, and when i introduce them to the guy who shoved the Opeth-CDs into my hands, he often doesnt even give it a try haha. I managed to get him into Katatonia though, but i had to give him the "learning-curve-speach" before he _really_ listened to them, and now he loves them, hehe.
Its like he keeps closing that door that Opeth opened for me, or maybe he didnt have the same experience when he got into them, or just havent realized it. Hm, strange.