Watershed: Are you disapointed with it?

Bit off topic here. And sorry if it's been mentioned before.

But this would piss me off if it slipped through on a release of my own:

If you look at the back cover of the CD wallet for Watershed, in the special edition pack (the one with the guy's face in a photo frame), the song titles in the bottom-right hand corner contain a typo. The Lotus Eater is spelt as "The Louts Eater".

How could that slip through?
 
Bit off topic here. And sorry if it's been mentioned before.

But this would piss me off if it slipped through on a release of my own:

If you look at the back cover of the CD wallet for Watershed, in the special edition pack (the one with the guy's face in a photo frame), the song titles in the bottom-right hand corner contain a typo. The Lotus Eater is spelt as "The Louts Eater".

How could that slip through?

Wow. You're right. How did that happen?
 
Bit off topic here. And sorry if it's been mentioned before.

But this would piss me off if it slipped through on a release of my own:

If you look at the back cover of the CD wallet for Watershed, in the special edition pack (the one with the guy's face in a photo frame), the song titles in the bottom-right hand corner contain a typo. The Lotus Eater is spelt as "The Louts Eater".

How could that slip through?

yeah mine has it too =\
 
Bit off topic here. And sorry if it's been mentioned before.

But this would piss me off if it slipped through on a release of my own:

If you look at the back cover of the CD wallet for Watershed, in the special edition pack (the one with the guy's face in a photo frame), the song titles in the bottom-right hand corner contain a typo. The Lotus Eater is spelt as "The Louts Eater".

How could that slip through?

Even worse, it's on the back of the regular edition jewel case, so people will look at it and think "The Louts Eater!?!?"
 
Travis addressed this a while ago in a different thread that was specifically about the artwork. He accepted responsibility for it. Apparently this will be fixed in subsequent pressings.
 
I'm pretty disappointed with Watershed it has to be said. Much of the heavy guitar work is somewhat generic and really uninspiring. I also agree with what some other people have said on this thread in that WS lacks atmosphere... that was something that really drew me to all of their other albums (par Deliverance maybe). Also, many of the transitions seem pretty forced and very awkward at times.

Overall I think WS seems to be lacking in most of the areas in which Opeth are usually so good.
I guess one could also argue that MAYH was also full of generic guitar? I think it was but to me it doesn't matter the complexity of the songs, if we look at each Opeth record they are all quite different from one another. I did find WS to be a record I had to listen to a few times to really appreciate it. Much like Damnation was for me. I hated Damnation at first! I was like "WTF! Did they all grow vaginas? Where are the growls man?!" I decided to give it a chance and I slowly found some things in each song that I liked. It started to build and now Damnation gets its regular spins and I love those songs. Sometimes you need to stare at art for a while before you develop the taste and not necessarily need to get slaped in the face with it. Heir Apparent is absolutely fukin brutal. May be one of their heaviest ever and the outro that almost doesn't seem like it belongs to the same song is brilliant. Hex Omega is very simple but has such a catchy riff and I can't stop playing it. Coil is just beautiful and really shows how MA's voice continues to get better (like it needed to before right?) The early records were a lot of twin guitar harmony that a lot of bands were doing back then so hats off to MA for wanted to constantly do something different. How can a musician who is truely a great musician ever be happy with their art if they worry about what the fans think?

Qestion for Mikael: you have done a melow record in Damnation, have you ever thought of doing an entire record of brutality? I know Bloodbath may be your catharsis for that but I was just curious.
 
The main problem here is the songwriting, which is just bad, bad, bad on all accounts. Opeth, like such aberrations as UneXpect, seem to be under the impression that having a million different parts and instrumental bits strung together with all the subtlety of a drunken sailor equals a good song. However intriguing their intentions, and however good their musicianship, though, that isn't the case, and it never will be. In fact, I don't think there is one real song on here at all, aside from the acoustic opener, just six long, drawn out jam sessions with lyrics sung over them. Asking me to differentiate between these would be like asking a blind man to find Waldo: it is out of my hands. I mean, if you were to listen to this whole album completely devoid of bias or knowledge of the band that made it, you'd hear the opening track "Coil," which is a three minute acoustic number with soft, clean vocals and no aggression at all. Then it segues into "Heir Apparent," which despite being the name of an 80s Speed Metal band, has a load of doomy, aggressive riffs that resonate in your ears as if you're right up next to them while they're playing it. If that isn't enough of a jarring change, the fact that this same song deteriorates into a mess of jazzy time changes and progressively-tinged guitar licks will definitely scare off the uninitiated listener. "The Lotus Eater" starts off slow, and then jumps into a frenzy of blastbeating madness, except for a change, there are clean vocals layered over this section, rather than the harsh growling one would expect. An interesting idea, but it takes more than things like this to make a good album. There are a lot of select good ideas here, but none of them are stretched out into good songs, and so Watershed is mostly just tedious to listen to.

Afterwards, the rest of the album falls into a pattern of inane musical shifts like this, so much that the randomness and unexpectedness of it all becomes very expected and tiresome, thus ruining the intended effect. I must also single out "The Porcelain Heart" as the most annoying song here, simply for the fact that it made me turn off this album the first time I tried to listen to it.

The other problem here is that this band tries so hard to be emotional and heartfelt that they go completely overboard and their ship sinks. Mikael Akerfeldt is a very technically proficient vocalist, with a nice growl and clean vocals that are as crystal-clear and shiny as they come, except he shouldn't be trying to sing such ambitious material. Just listen to the opener "Coil" for a perfect summation of what I'm talking about: he does sing very cleanly and melodically, but he's trying so damn hard to sound emotional and sad that I'm almost embarrassed for him. This whole thing is so overdone and weepy that it crosses the fatal brink of bathos and goes completely off the edge. Pretty much every spot on this album where the clean vocals pop up suffers from this problem, and the rest of the album is as sterile and dry as a newly cleaned hospital ward. Anyone who seriously thinks Watershed is some sort of emotional pinnacle of modern rock music needs to go listen to the latest works by Kamelot or Novembers Doom, two bands with an infinitely better grasp of this sort of thing.

And last, but not least, this album is simply boring and lame and I don't want to listen to it again.

I don't see any reason to like this album. It isn't catchy, it isn't cohesive, it isn't even that beautiful. It's just...there. Taking up space in the world. The resources used to make this album could've surely been used for something more helpful, like...something for helping homeless children. Something like that. In fact, Opeth could very well be doing much better and more helpful things than making music like this themselves. I can't really recommend this to anyone unless you happen to be one of those people who feels more artistic and sophisticated due to listening to stuff you don't understand. Trust me, there's nothing to understand here.
 
The main problem here is the songwriting, which is just bad, bad, bad on all accounts. Opeth, like such aberrations as UneXpect, seem to be under the impression that having a million different parts and instrumental bits strung together with all the subtlety of a drunken sailor equals a good song. However intriguing their intentions, and however good their musicianship, though, that isn't the case, and it never will be. In fact, I don't think there is one real song on here at all, aside from the acoustic opener, just six long, drawn out jam sessions with lyrics sung over them. Asking me to differentiate between these would be like asking a blind man to find Waldo: it is out of my hands. I mean, if you were to listen to this whole album completely devoid of bias or knowledge of the band that made it, you'd hear the opening track "Coil," which is a three minute acoustic number with soft, clean vocals and no aggression at all. Then it segues into "Heir Apparent," which despite being the name of an 80s Speed Metal band, has a load of doomy, aggressive riffs that resonate in your ears as if you're right up next to them while they're playing it. If that isn't enough of a jarring change, the fact that this same song deteriorates into a mess of jazzy time changes and progressively-tinged guitar licks will definitely scare off the uninitiated listener. "The Lotus Eater" starts off slow, and then jumps into a frenzy of blastbeating madness, except for a change, there are clean vocals layered over this section, rather than the harsh growling one would expect. An interesting idea, but it takes more than things like this to make a good album. There are a lot of select good ideas here, but none of them are stretched out into good songs, and so Watershed is mostly just tedious to listen to.

Afterwards, the rest of the album falls into a pattern of inane musical shifts like this, so much that the randomness and unexpectedness of it all becomes very expected and tiresome, thus ruining the intended effect. I must also single out "The Porcelain Heart" as the most annoying song here, simply for the fact that it made me turn off this album the first time I tried to listen to it.

The other problem here is that this band tries so hard to be emotional and heartfelt that they go completely overboard and their ship sinks. Mikael Akerfeldt is a very technically proficient vocalist, with a nice growl and clean vocals that are as crystal-clear and shiny as they come, except he shouldn't be trying to sing such ambitious material. Just listen to the opener "Coil" for a perfect summation of what I'm talking about: he does sing very cleanly and melodically, but he's trying so damn hard to sound emotional and sad that I'm almost embarrassed for him. This whole thing is so overdone and weepy that it crosses the fatal brink of bathos and goes completely off the edge. Pretty much every spot on this album where the clean vocals pop up suffers from this problem, and the rest of the album is as sterile and dry as a newly cleaned hospital ward. Anyone who seriously thinks Watershed is some sort of emotional pinnacle of modern rock music needs to go listen to the latest works by Kamelot or Novembers Doom, two bands with an infinitely better grasp of this sort of thing.

And last, but not least, this album is simply boring and lame and I don't want to listen to it again.

I don't see any reason to like this album. It isn't catchy, it isn't cohesive, it isn't even that beautiful. It's just...there. Taking up space in the world. The resources used to make this album could've surely been used for something more helpful, like...something for helping homeless children. Something like that. In fact, Opeth could very well be doing much better and more helpful things than making music like this themselves. I can't really recommend this to anyone unless you happen to be one of those people who feels more artistic and sophisticated due to listening to stuff you don't understand. Trust me, there's nothing to understand here.

tl;dr
 
The main problem here is the songwriting, which is just bad, bad, bad on all accounts. Opeth, like such aberrations as UneXpect, seem to be under the impression that having a million different parts and instrumental bits strung together with all the subtlety of a drunken sailor equals a good song. However intriguing their intentions, and however good their musicianship, though, that isn't the case, and it never will be. In fact, I don't think there is one real song on here at all, aside from the acoustic opener, just six long, drawn out jam sessions with lyrics sung over them. Asking me to differentiate between these would be like asking a blind man to find Waldo: it is out of my hands. I mean, if you were to listen to this whole album completely devoid of bias or knowledge of the band that made it, you'd hear the opening track "Coil," which is a three minute acoustic number with soft, clean vocals and no aggression at all. Then it segues into "Heir Apparent," which despite being the name of an 80s Speed Metal band, has a load of doomy, aggressive riffs that resonate in your ears as if you're right up next to them while they're playing it. If that isn't enough of a jarring change, the fact that this same song deteriorates into a mess of jazzy time changes and progressively-tinged guitar licks will definitely scare off the uninitiated listener. "The Lotus Eater" starts off slow, and then jumps into a frenzy of blastbeating madness, except for a change, there are clean vocals layered over this section, rather than the harsh growling one would expect. An interesting idea, but it takes more than things like this to make a good album. There are a lot of select good ideas here, but none of them are stretched out into good songs, and so Watershed is mostly just tedious to listen to.

Afterwards, the rest of the album falls into a pattern of inane musical shifts like this, so much that the randomness and unexpectedness of it all becomes very expected and tiresome, thus ruining the intended effect. I must also single out "The Porcelain Heart" as the most annoying song here, simply for the fact that it made me turn off this album the first time I tried to listen to it.

The other problem here is that this band tries so hard to be emotional and heartfelt that they go completely overboard and their ship sinks. Mikael Akerfeldt is a very technically proficient vocalist, with a nice growl and clean vocals that are as crystal-clear and shiny as they come, except he shouldn't be trying to sing such ambitious material. Just listen to the opener "Coil" for a perfect summation of what I'm talking about: he does sing very cleanly and melodically, but he's trying so damn hard to sound emotional and sad that I'm almost embarrassed for him. This whole thing is so overdone and weepy that it crosses the fatal brink of bathos and goes completely off the edge. Pretty much every spot on this album where the clean vocals pop up suffers from this problem, and the rest of the album is as sterile and dry as a newly cleaned hospital ward. Anyone who seriously thinks Watershed is some sort of emotional pinnacle of modern rock music needs to go listen to the latest works by Kamelot or Novembers Doom, two bands with an infinitely better grasp of this sort of thing.

And last, but not least, this album is simply boring and lame and I don't want to listen to it again.

I don't see any reason to like this album. It isn't catchy, it isn't cohesive, it isn't even that beautiful. It's just...there. Taking up space in the world. The resources used to make this album could've surely been used for something more helpful, like...something for helping homeless children. Something like that. In fact, Opeth could very well be doing much better and more helpful things than making music like this themselves. I can't really recommend this to anyone unless you happen to be one of those people who feels more artistic and sophisticated due to listening to stuff you don't understand. Trust me, there's nothing to understand here.


You'll get over it. Never mind, the sun will still rise tomorrow. I think it's brilliant by the way.
 
The main problem here is the songwriting, which is just bad, bad, bad on all accounts. Opeth, like such aberrations as UneXpect, seem to be under the impression that having a million different parts and instrumental bits strung together with all the subtlety of a drunken sailor equals a good song. However intriguing their intentions, and however good their musicianship, though, that isn't the case, and it never will be. In fact, I don't think there is one real song on here at all, aside from the acoustic opener, just six long, drawn out jam sessions with lyrics sung over them. Asking me to differentiate between these would be like asking a blind man to find Waldo: it is out of my hands. I mean, if you were to listen to this whole album completely devoid of bias or knowledge of the band that made it, you'd hear the opening track "Coil," which is a three minute acoustic number with soft, clean vocals and no aggression at all. Then it segues into "Heir Apparent," which despite being the name of an 80s Speed Metal band, has a load of doomy, aggressive riffs that resonate in your ears as if you're right up next to them while they're playing it. If that isn't enough of a jarring change, the fact that this same song deteriorates into a mess of jazzy time changes and progressively-tinged guitar licks will definitely scare off the uninitiated listener. "The Lotus Eater" starts off slow, and then jumps into a frenzy of blastbeating madness, except for a change, there are clean vocals layered over this section, rather than the harsh growling one would expect. An interesting idea, but it takes more than things like this to make a good album. There are a lot of select good ideas here, but none of them are stretched out into good songs, and so Watershed is mostly just tedious to listen to.

Afterwards, the rest of the album falls into a pattern of inane musical shifts like this, so much that the randomness and unexpectedness of it all becomes very expected and tiresome, thus ruining the intended effect. I must also single out "The Porcelain Heart" as the most annoying song here, simply for the fact that it made me turn off this album the first time I tried to listen to it.

The other problem here is that this band tries so hard to be emotional and heartfelt that they go completely overboard and their ship sinks. Mikael Akerfeldt is a very technically proficient vocalist, with a nice growl and clean vocals that are as crystal-clear and shiny as they come, except he shouldn't be trying to sing such ambitious material. Just listen to the opener "Coil" for a perfect summation of what I'm talking about: he does sing very cleanly and melodically, but he's trying so damn hard to sound emotional and sad that I'm almost embarrassed for him. This whole thing is so overdone and weepy that it crosses the fatal brink of bathos and goes completely off the edge. Pretty much every spot on this album where the clean vocals pop up suffers from this problem, and the rest of the album is as sterile and dry as a newly cleaned hospital ward. Anyone who seriously thinks Watershed is some sort of emotional pinnacle of modern rock music needs to go listen to the latest works by Kamelot or Novembers Doom, two bands with an infinitely better grasp of this sort of thing.

And last, but not least, this album is simply boring and lame and I don't want to listen to it again.

I don't see any reason to like this album. It isn't catchy, it isn't cohesive, it isn't even that beautiful. It's just...there. Taking up space in the world. The resources used to make this album could've surely been used for something more helpful, like...something for helping homeless children. Something like that. In fact, Opeth could very well be doing much better and more helpful things than making music like this themselves. I can't really recommend this to anyone unless you happen to be one of those people who feels more artistic and sophisticated due to listening to stuff you don't understand. Trust me, there's nothing to understand here.

Troll is hungry?
 
I ain't a troll, I am just adding to the thread. You guys take Opeth and yourselves way too seriously. You're like a bunch of fanatical priests working for a church, a group of stalkers defending your favorite band, or the types of maniacs that would salute presidents/tyrants in blind allegiance. Seriously, are you guys members of the band? Are you all simple enough in mentality to be so easily hurt by a bunch of words or even worse "offended" cause some truth kicked your nuts? Damn, you guys are almost like the freak in NY that recently beat the hell out of some guy with a baseball bat cause he likes the Redsox. Even worse is the troll allegation; so if i don't croon and love on the boys in Opeth I am suddenly gonna get banned cause alternative opinions are not accepted in this regime. Fuck, that sounds like Nazism or constitutional infringement via the Patriot Act by George W. Bush on the Opeth forum.

And that ain't even my review. I forgot to mention i saw it on Metal-Archives. I just put it on here to further the thread with debate.
 
Really, dude? We don't like your post, therefor Nazism? Any time some punk on a board gives a controversial opinion, then is refuted, it's a goddamned fascist regime - and it's making me wary that amateurs on the Internet are desensitizing those around them to concepts of true hate, true oppression, such that you won't even recognize it when it bites you on the ass (or invades your home without a warrant).

My personal sentiments aside, you are, by definition, a troll if you come onto a website with an intensely controversial opinion and state it objectively and rudely, attacking the board users with unprecedented rancor, and invite attention and pointless responses (like this one). It doesn't help your case that your name is Blowpeth (though I think we've got to give you a little credit for that one).

No, our appreciation of the band that leads us to insult you verbally across many miles of wire does not make us like the guy who assaulted the Red Sox fan with a baseball bat. You see, no one here would assault you with a guitar. What's more, I don't think we're capable of being so beautifully ironic - baseball fan gets attacked with the tool of his own pleasure. You've got the fans all wrong, too. We don't take the band that seriously. We like the music, I mean, we like it a TON. But I refer you to the Photoshopeth thread - and if you still think we take them seriously after even two pages of that, there's not much anyone can do to broaden your point of view. Well.

I can see you don't like the band, and that's fine, but REALLY man? "The resources used to make this album could've surely been used for something more helpful, like...something for helping homeless children." Of all the groups to attack for that, Opeth? They're only just now starting to become a more accessible band. Why not Avril Lavrigne or Britney Spears or something that we all agree is crap? You're unwilling to concede even the slightest credit to a band that has defined a sound and a synthesis of genres, with technical and aesthetic (though subjective) success - in fact, half of the first paragraph of your rant showcases the focus of the near-unanimous praise the band has been receiving for this album. Now, last possibility. Let's say Opeth actually suck really, really hard, and we're all wrong and you're right. Why'd you ruin it for us, ya asshole?

Alright, great, I fed the troll. But it is in the case the offhand chance that you're really serious, that bringing down five hairy awesome Swedes in the eyes a small fraction of their fans is your #1 priority, that I reply.
 
I love Watershed. My favourite 'Peth since BP. Really pleased with it. They went exactly where I wanted them to go.

As far as that lengthy negative review is concerned - fair enough. I can completely understand someone thinking that about it. I'm almost certain I would thought something similar 15 years ago. In my mid-thirties now and my tastes have changed drastically over time. It all comes down to what you specifically want out of music and whether it delivers it. There are many ways to listen and enjoy, not just one.
 
Not sure how many time I've posted this in this thread, but I am very satisfied with Watershed. Agreed that it's their best since BWP.
 
well the little opeth watershed review up there definitly lost its credibility when name dropping kamelot.