Truth about Opeth's albums

[Addicted]

Nooo, I just love Still Life!

Damnation, Deliverance, and Ghost Reveries are excellent.

Watershed was a disappointment, but only due to Opeth's high standards. It just didn't have the same... Atmosphere maybe. It was still head and shoulders above most of last years releases though.

 

[Antyman]

I think Watershed has got the best atmosphere and emotion by far!

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

you people are really fuckin dumb if

a) you think it's just a trend to hate watershed
b) you think that watershed was better than everything else last year

i've said it many times - watershed doesn't hold a candle to albums like "the maniacal vale", "chaining the katechon (ep)", "melancholie2", "dark space iii", "massive conspiracy against all live", "advent parallax", "mahakali", "kolossus," "vertebrae", distant system's "spiral empire"... hell even "traced in air" and "dark thrones and black flags" are/were better. I mean there were so many good/great/excellent releases last year that watershed falls to the bottom of the list

I think Watershed has got the best atmosphere and emotion by far!

are you retarded, that's obviously mayh/sl for the combination and possibly deliverance for the cold, almost mechanic atmosphere.

^ uhm.. judging by this board, you are now one of the 99% who think Still Life is their best album. only thing missing now is that you hate every other album made after Still Life. especially Watershed, you can't be a true fan and enjoy the most recent album by a band, everyone knows that.

it will become accepted to like Watershed once their next album is released.

you're just making yourself look even dumber. plenty of people on this board like albums after still life. from cover to cover I'd have to say deliverance is my favorite opeth album and I know I'm not the only one on here that thinks that too.

watershed is opeth's weakest album because none of the tracks really have any coherence. even the two best on the album, in heir apparent and hessian peel, seem thrown together and none of the parts really fit. not to mention the ridiculous lyrics.

it's one thing if you're a standard death metal band, to have shit lyrics (or if you're steven wilson.) but when mikael's clean vocals are overtaking more and more of the vocal spread, it's kinda retarded when there's no quality control of the lyrics when he's writing lines like "will the children cry, when their mother dies" or lines like "I lost all that I had that april day" or "rest your head now don't you cry, don't ever ask the reason why." there's lines like that all over the album. when you're trying to be david coverdale, lyrics should at least make some semblance of sense - even if they're ultimately superfluous and metaphors for nothing.

there you go. that's all the nay-saying pretty much summed into a couple of paragraphs for you.

 

[Lateralus14]

Watershed imo

Coil - Fun song to play on acoustic I think and the bass is good too, lyrics are horrid and I'm not too into the female singing
Heir Apparent - Good song with some nice riffs but makes me worry that someone's creativity might be diminishing a little bit, considering all the open E riffs and the shredding. A little disjointed.
The Lotus Eater - The mid section with the guitar solos is the best part, before and after is a lot of power chord stuff showing the same lack of creativity that the open E riffs of Heir Apparent did. Pretty disjointed as well.
Burden - Lyrics = cheese, as with most of this album (though tracks 2 and 3 have good lyrics imo). I like the electric guitar solos and the piano, and the leads. As with basically all the songs on the album, the ending is basically irrelevant to the rest of the song.
Porcelain Heart - Bar none Opeth's worst song, rewriting what was already an uninspiring riff, dreadful lyrics, disjointed as fuck - I think the only part I sorta like is the acoustic part under the verses, but that would have been better used in like..a good song.
Hessian Peel - Pretty disjointed though the individual parts are good, the clean sung lyrics are dreadful, the backwards singing was a complete gimmick whereas it was kinda interesting on BTPISIO, the two riffs after the solo are probably the best on the album as they aren't open E nonsense or power chord gayness, I like the palm muted acoustic "riff" too.
Hex Omega - My 2nd least favorite Opeth song of all time though Porcelain Heart is the only one I actually dislike rather than just "meh", the electric riffs are kinda cool but this attempt to be super progressive was just kinda boring.


So I like tracks 1-4, and 6 myself, but I still agree this is Opeth's worst effort because A) littered with uninspired riffs and lyrics (cheese lyrics, generic metal riffs) and B) it actually has a song I don't fucking like, wtf.

 

[Melpond]

Here's the real truth about opeth albums: they're all really good, but douchebag opeth fans have stupid predispositions to liking or hating them, be it because of who's playing the instruments, what order they, the listener, heard the albums or even the songs on the albums, things as stupid as the track title or track position, or even song length. In the end, most of you top-poster, old, hardcore opeth fans are just fucking stupid and your opinions on the music aren't objective at all. Your opinions are not objective in the slightest.

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

so basically you're saying that you have absolutely no clue what the fuck you're talking about? cos that's what I gathered from your post there, good sir. really haven't seen anyone, in my 4 years on this board, bash any album for what the track positions or track titles are. I've seen people bash songs over being too long, though...because generally songs that are too long, they overstay their welcome and start to become boring. see how that works?

you stupid fuck. go crawl back under the rock that you came from, thanks.

 

[Anesthetize]

^ track title, position, and length are all very important. It's a matter of concept, flow, and coherency.

 

[metal_wrath]

I often read complaints here about "the song wasn't placed well in the album" "the song really threw off the 'flow' of the album" and shit.

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

I really dont think it would have mattered whether burden was at track 1, track 4, or track 7. same thing with all the other tracks. most the songs on opeth albums are interchangeable and anybody who says otherwise is kinda retarded ttytt

 

[Space Butler]

Fact: Burden > Heir Apparent > Coil > Hex Omega > Hessian Peel > The Lotus Eater > Porcelin Heart

 

[Antyman]

you people are really fuckin dumb if

a) you think it's just a trend to hate watershed
b) you think that watershed was better than everything else last year

i've said it many times - watershed doesn't hold a candle to albums like "the maniacal vale", "chaining the katechon (ep)", "melancholie2", "dark space iii", "massive conspiracy against all live", "advent parallax", "mahakali", "kolossus," "vertebrae", distant system's "spiral empire"... hell even "traced in air" and "dark thrones and black flags" are/were better. I mean there were so many good/great/excellent releases last year that watershed falls to the bottom of the list


are you retarded, that's obviously mayh/sl for the combination and possibly deliverance for the cold, almost mechanic atmosphere.



you're just making yourself look even dumber. plenty of people on this board like albums after still life. from cover to cover I'd have to say deliverance is my favorite opeth album and I know I'm not the only one on here that thinks that too.

watershed is opeth's weakest album because none of the tracks really have any coherence. even the two best on the album, in heir apparent and hessian peel, seem thrown together and none of the parts really fit. not to mention the ridiculous lyrics.

it's one thing if you're a standard death metal band, to have shit lyrics (or if you're steven wilson.) but when mikael's clean vocals are overtaking more and more of the vocal spread, it's kinda retarded when there's no quality control of the lyrics when he's writing lines like "will the children cry, when their mother dies" or lines like "I lost all that I had that april day" or "rest your head now don't you cry, don't ever ask the reason why." there's lines like that all over the album. when you're trying to be david coverdale, lyrics should at least make some semblance of sense - even if they're ultimately superfluous and metaphors for nothing.

there you go. that's all the nay-saying pretty much summed into a couple of paragraphs for you.

Douchebag

That gave me a good laugh! worst crap I've read, kind of a desperate prayer for street-cred or something

 

[Antyman]

do this:

I'm sorry about that, but powerfull and nice story! did you get a rematch against the drunkies?

I have one similiar one, but yet totaly different. I've written this in another thread I believe, but whatever.

it was mid summer. I decided to go to my summer place outside of Norrtälje i Sweden, and so I did. I have a little cottage there, one room with a bed in, in the middle of the deep woods, at a small lake.
When I got there my father phoned me about a wolf that ha'd been spotted in the forrest I was in, but I decided to stay (as I'm not one of those locos who think wolves are man-eating beasts).
the dusk came closer and it started raining like bloody hell, and along came thunder and darkness. and there I was, in my wooden bed, in the middle of the night, when rain shattered on the roof making that cozy sound along with the thunder lightening up the cottage, being surrounded by wolves. I could feel the scent of swedish summer-rain and old wood.

so I decided to give Watershed a go on my MP3. And all I can say is ORGASM.. I remember Heir Apparent the best. It made the perfect mood and even if I shat bricks, I still couldn't turn it off. it wasn't in my power!
One of my best memories, and the highlight of my life.

sorry if this wasn't really a story, and if my english blew.

then tell me Watershed lacks emotion and such.

 

[Nasty-Fire]

If you can listen to Heir apparent all the way through and not realize it's a masterpiece you're pretty fucking dumb.

I'm pretty fucking dumb.. but more pretty than fucking dumb.. Mock notes of a masterpiece!!

you people are really fuckin dumb if

b) you think that watershed was better than everything else last year

i've said it many times - watershed doesn't hold a candle to albums like "the maniacal vale", "chaining the katechon (ep)", "melancholie2", "dark space iii", "massive conspiracy against all live", "advent parallax", "mahakali", "kolossus," "vertebrae", distant system's "spiral empire"... hell even "traced in air" and "dark thrones and black flags" are/were better. I mean there were so many good/great/excellent releases last year that watershed falls to the bottom of the list

And again I'm fucking dumb because I think Watershed was way better (by far) than Vertebrae (I don't know the rest of them). I'm also fucking dumb to have an opinion.

^ uhm.. judging by this board, you are now one of the 99% who think Still Life is their best album.:

Based of facts, the actual statistic is around 40% if I remind correctly. About Watershed.. notice that the awesome song called Derelict Herds forgets too often to be mentionned.

In the end, most of you top-poster, old, hardcore opeth fans are just fucking stupid and your opinions on the music aren't objective at all. Your opinions are not objective in the slightest.

You will first need to explain me how can an opinion about taste be objective. And yes, you should buy that rope.

 

[lammoth]

Based of facts, the actual statistic is around 40% if I remind correctly. About Watershed.. notice that the awesome song called Derelict Herds forgets too often to be mentionned.

So true about derelict herds, anyone knows why it wasn't on the main album?
and about facts, you need to look here to get your FACTS cleared
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/opeth/509248-facts.html

 

[Nasty-Fire]

Duh! Correction : based on polls.

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

Douchebag

That gave me a good laugh! worst crap I've read, kind of a desperate prayer for street-cred or something

how is that a "desperate prayer for street-cred or something?" how is that "worst crap you've read"? all of it is true. not to mention that...dude, I don't need "street cred". do you think I give a shit about looking "elite" on the internet?

every single point I made about watershed is perfectly valid, ask anyone on here who doesn't blindly praise everything opeth does. the lyrics are fucking horrid which is quite sad when mikael is pushing his cleans up front more. the riffs don't transition into each other, or even make sense next to each other at all. the performances are perfectly fine, from a technique/playing standpoint (except for the lyrics ) but the songwriting is pretty abysmal.

but, are you really that fucking deaf that you can't understand that "will the children cry when their mother dies" is a terrible lyric? or that "rest your head now dont you cry, dont ever ask the reason why" is a terrible lyric? for fucks sakes its not as if these are hidden underneath layers of harsh vocals either, these are clean vocals that are in the forefront. meandering, superfluous lyrics weren't a problem on an album like blackwater park or deliverance because there were layers of harsh vocals, which sometimes made it hard to discern that the lyrics actually were pointless. but now that mikael is trying to be david coverdale, it's apparent that the lyrics he wrote for watershed are pretty elementary, if not just flat-out bad.

it's all those points that make watershed not be anywhere close to a contender for album of the year. I think I had given watershed 3 or 4 listens and pretty much none of it had caught my attention (save for the obvious ownage parts in hessian peel, like the riff that comes after the solo during the heavy part). but take for example the deathspell omega ep ("chaining the katechon"). that ep, at 22 minutes, held my attention all the way through. to this day I'm still picking out subtle things that I never noticed before. I played that ep like 20 times when it first came out, and I still wasn't bored of it. that's why that ep is superior to watershed.

the same could be said about any of the albums that I mentioned, except maybe the maniacal vale. tmv is such a mammoth that you really need to be "in the mood" for it. after all, it's like 1hr 45min or smth.



sometimes I really wish I stopped posting on this board, it's full of dumb fanboys and people who really just cannot comprehend why everyone who was worth while ended up leaving.

 

[Antyman]

ok, too much to read, won't bother.

 

[Alex78]

I have to agree with Wolfwood. WS to me just seems to go nowhere. I feel the songwriting is pretty bad compared to the high standards set by MAYH,SL,BWP for example. the melodies just aren't "tasty" and the lyrics are indeed cringeworthy (I can deal with "basic" or cheesy lyrics but this is just too much). then there's gimmicky stuff like that famous keyboard part if Lotus Eater, where you think "now that's a crazy idea" but it adds _nothing_ to the song's substance.

but perhaps most significantly, it's just that the melodies are so damn boring. anyone remember the quiet section in Godheads Lament? Genius. On WS, however, there's nothing like that, it's like the music was written to fit the crappy lyrics.
but at least we got female vocals on WS - wow, I've been waiting for ages for that to happen, because it just totally adds another dimension teh music!!

 

[Addicted]

Watershed is opeth's weakest album because none of the tracks really have any coherence. even the two best on the album, in heir apparent and hessian peel, seem thrown together and none of the parts really fit. not to mention the ridiculous lyrics.

Amen.

And to an above poster, Vertebrae is indeed an amazing album. My favourite last year.

 

[lammoth]

how many watershed bashing threads on this forum??
its something different, we can see their sound evolve, which IMO is a good thing, id prefer a band whose sound changes rather than the Maiden all albums are the same type.