Okay, I thought I'd let the entire anti-Still Life thing slide since there seems to be so many new members on here that favour the BWP and post material. Fair enough, I thought, since it took me about 2 years to get into Opeth's back catalogue and understand why it runs circles around the newer stuff (excluding Ghost Reveries, which I feel ranks up with MAYH and SL).
Now what really gets me is all this misinformation about production.
Here are 3 frequency analysis graph averages I came up with from 'Moonlapse Vertigo', 'The Twilight is my Robe' and 'Demon of the Fall'.
Moonlapse Vertigo
Demon of the Fall
The Twilight is My Robe
Now with that in mind, I'm going to start addressing specific comments.
Still Life has a better production technically, but unlike the aformentioned records, it fails to achieve what it sets out to do.
Well that really depends. What do you think it set out to do? It certainly succeeded in giving reasonable clarity to songs which at times have in excess of 6 seperate distorted guitars playing at the one time.
I don't know about you, but I find it challenging enough to balance my vocals in mixes with just 2 rhythm guitars. Still Life's rhythm guitars were layered, and THEN you had all the leads and harmonies on top of that. I think all things considered, the midrange clarity of that album is fantastic.
Not only that but during a lot of parts there is even ACOUSTIC GUITAR!! on top of the layers of distorted guitars, and yet they still more or less come through.
Now I'm not 100% sure on this, but since Mike reffered to the drop-out errors being caused by the DAT tapes, I'm gonna assume this album was tracked to and mixed on ADAT. If that is the case, then whoever was mixing wouldn't have had NEARLY as much versatility as Steve Wilson did using Logic, which is a HD-based system. To put it simply... Still Life's tracking methods more than likely have more in common with the old analogue days of recording than they do with teh new HD-based ways (minus the fact that ADATs are digital). They still would've had to use the desk for automation, actual outboard gear for effects etc. No convenience of plug-ins which Opeth got in the BWP and post era.
It doesn't have the depth it should have.
Is that another way of saying you want the album to have more reverb? I don't understand. It has plenty of depth to me.. in particular those parts where there is almost a symphony of guitars interplaying with each other. The one thing that Still Life DOES have over every other album Opeth have ever done is depth. It has depth galore. Actually it's so damn deep that nothing would ever spill out
.
The clean vocals are better mixed than on the first 2 records, and stronger, but they are treated badly.
I don't get that vibe at all. But I suppose that's more of a subjective thing than anything else. To me the vocals on MAYH... or actually most elements of MAYH have wayyy too much reverb. Case in point: Mike's little thing at the end of 'When' you know the whole 'when can I take you from this place...' thing. The only reason taht seems to cut through the mix is because the damn verb is everywhere. It's all you can hear! Actually I think for that part they must've mixed in more verb than actual dry signal
They lack the warmth they had on MAYH.
Yep, they do, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The vocals on Still Life are crunchier. There's a rawer upper midrange there and it really brings out that back-throat, gargling area of his voice. Helps the growls and all. Fantastic thing is that the clean vocals cut through perfectly during the heavier parts.
That's because there's actual midrange in the guitars now. All the guitar sounds they pulled prior to Still Life were quite harsh and dry. For Orchid and Morningrise that should go without saying. The guitar sounds are abysmal. For MAYH, they're just really raw and crunchy, which I find really odd considering it was a 5150 head they used. I've honestly never heard those things emit anything OTHER than midrange, until Opeth used em, haha!
I mean just compare the midrange graph of Twilight is my Robe to that of Moonlapse vertigo. The midrange for Orchid is all over the place, no doubt contributing to that harsh sound that makes your ears want to bleed. For SL there's a big peak around the 2.2k mark, but aside from that, it seems pretty smooth sailing. I mean it stands to reason, if you look at all the graphs, you see that Still Life has the most gradual curves, kind of coinciding with the fact that its the least harsh on the ears. It's smoother, not muddy.
Yeah, the production is very muddy and you can barely hear any bass.
Ah yes, bass.
Well if we're talking about albums where the bass guitar can't be heard, I think MAYH can take the cake. I think if we talk about albums where you don't WANT to hear the bass, Orchid and Morningrise take it.
When it comes to bass frequencies in general, Still Life (judging from the graphs) seems to have the highest overall amount of hearable bass. MAYH has a shitload of that sub 62Hz bass which consitutes a lot of rumbling and accounts for the fact that my entire room shakes whenever that kick is hit. There's way too much 'wowoaorooroaooOROOOROoom' rumble happening during the entirety of MAYH to really play it loud on a big speaker system. I mean THAT is my definition of muddy. The drivers on my speakers aren't even that large.
But all things considered, is there anything worthwhile about hearing the bass guitar on Still Life? I don't really think it does that many things that are interesting. Face of Melinda probably has the biggest amount of non-standard bass, and for that track you can more or less hear it.
