Watershed vs Ghost Reveries

[Lenni]

I think GR has some better songs than anything on Watershed, but Watershed does not have The Grand Conjuration, so it's automatically better.

I still think TGC is a great song and an important one on Ghost Reveries; while it may seem a tad to long, it's a killer track right after hours of wealth and it fits there because it's so heavy.

Porcelain Heart on the other hand (and on the other album) fails to impress me somehow and bores me a lot more because it seems way too simple and also the chord progression in the "ahhaahaaah"-part is not too interesting.
TGC has this evil vibe that I miss on most songs on Watershed anyway.

 

[Still Life 1891]

^ i agree

 

[Metalstrm]

I am in the GR camp. GR hit me immediately. I remember after my first listen through I felt memerized and listened to it again. Watershed did no such thing. Even after several listens, I still cringe my teeth during certain parts, which unfortunately come up way too often. Now I've ended skipping most of the songs to listen to the two or three that I feel are the better.

I never did that with an Opeth album. And I've been an Opeth fan for years. I think my point is fairly well illustrated if you consider that Vespa60 only registered a few days ago, while all the rest of us "untrue" fans have been on for years.

 

[Iki-ilkkuja]

GR is easily Opeth's most solid album so far. No weak points, really solid. Great songwriting and do forth. But Watershed is bit fresher... after all, GR is an "safe" album.

 

[in limbow]

^I think Watershed is a pretty "safe" album. It's not a radical step ahead or anything, that's for sure. I don't think GR was really either, but it was focused, tight, the songwriting was brilliant, and the songs often gloriously beautiful. Watershed just doesn't have that kind of majesty that GR had; it feels like something of a side-step instead of a step forward like GR was, in the way it made previous Opeth albums seem like just a small sketch compared to the grand portrait of Ghost Reveries. So in this way Watershed reminds me kind of Tool's 10,000 Days... nothing new, kind of a dissapointment. Easily Opeth's weakest, but still not nearly as bad as the shite most bands put out. This is understandable, though, considering the magnitude of the lineup change that Opeth went through between GR and this album. I still am a huge Opeth fan, I just feel this one isn't up to their usual standards. But that's okay. I'm sure with time the whole band will meld together better, Akerfeldt's brilliant songwriting will come once again to its peak as on albums like MAYH and GR, and Watershed will just be a small mis-step in a career of amazing albums.

 

[SV 84]

Watershed, I think...