What were your first impressions of Opeth?

[Mark]

When I first heard Opeth (My Arms, Your Hearse), my immediate thoughts were (as far as the music was concerned) "This is what Metallica should be sounding like now" (if they had continued from where MOTP was heading).

The vocals took my some time to get used to, as being an Iron Maiden fan I was used to the clean, soaring type.

What were YOUR first, immediate, impressions of Opeth?

 

[Juggie]

I always listened too distubed, and korn, but I heard the night and silent water and my life changed

 

[benny]

I heard Morningrise first a little over a year and a half ago, I thought it was pretty good nothing to special. I had no problem with the vocals, I had been listening to black metal for a while by then and I actually liked them pretty much the first time I heard them. Then I got Orchid, MAYH, and Still Life in one order about a week after Morningrise. I fell in love with them all especially Still Life. They are my favorite band from then on.

 

[Jo]

I first heard the 'Still Life' album when it was released in Australia around (Nov '99)! Already a HUGE fan of metal, acoustic guitar, folk, jazz etc my first impression was...THIS BAND IS CREATING SOMETHING INCREDIBLY SPECIAL! I LIKE IT A LOT!! The Opeth sound is brilliant, I am addicted to Mikael's vocals on every album. With haste I embraced MAYH, Morningrise and Orchid. Opeth, my favourite music experience!

 

[rogue27]

I ordered Orchid on a whim, because I had been hearing good things about the band. The order came in right as I was heading out to go to class, so I just popped it in and let it play for a minute or so, and when the vocals started, I was like "aah!" and took it out of the CD player. I mean, I knew they would be rough, but that was just scary.

Several months later, I made myself listen to the CD, and I eventually started to really like it and ordered Morningrise... then MAYH... then Still Life came out and I got that. Then BWP...

I like them all very much now.

 

[Soul Forlorn]

I believe the first words that came to mind about a year and a half ago when I first spun my "Orchid" cd and "In Mist She Was Standing" came were "Holy Shit!!!!". I bought Orchid and MAYH at the same time and they immediately became almost all that I listened to for the next few months (that is until I quickly purchased Morningrise and Still Life). I was quite familiar with death style vocals yet Mike's vocals took a slight bit of adjustment since I wasn't quite used to the higher pitch of his vocals. I knew almost instantly that Opeth was what I had unconsciously been looking for in music for a long, long time. Dark themes, unparalled musicianship, excellent composition skills, melody, harmony...perfection!

 

[Evil Edith]

I bought "Orchid" when it first came out many moons ago and my first impression of the album was "that's a really weird riff to open an album with" but I knew I needed to give the disc more time. Eventually they would become my favorite band in the universe but not until Katationia's "Tonight's Decision" which I thought was absolute shit after "Discouraged Ones." Up until "Tonight's Decision" came out Katationia and Opeth were neck and neck in my favorite band catagory but now it looks like this:

3rd: Carpathian Forest (these guys fucking rule if only for the fact that they, and only they, manage to keep the "true" motivation of the original black metal dogma alive.
2nd: The Black League (Taneli Jarva is metal incarnate. Nothing more needs to be said.
\m/ \m/)
1st: (by a mile) Opeth. Now that Katatonia is off doing their pop rock thing Opeth is the unchallenged leader in the world of progressive doom death art.

 

[Confessor]

My friend told me to download Serenity Painted Death and i did.
Hmmm i thought it was nothing really extraordinary.
Then i listened to Still Life at some cd store, and i was blown away by it! I then knew that would become my favorite band. Thanks friend.

 

[godmachine12]

I heard Nectar and I was like "what the hell is this". It took a few spins, but damn I started to like it. So I got the album and that is that. Now they are my favorite band.

N/P: God Forbid-Determination

 

[Servo]

Upon hearing My Arms Your Hearse first, I knew that I had found what I had been looking for. I knew that this would be my favorite band.

 

[HoserHellspawn]

I guess in my graphics-guy ways, it should be little surpirse that Opeth caught my attention before I heard a note. I was staying at a friends place back in the summer of '99 and we were looking through his many CD's when I spotted Morningrise and I knew something about it was special. The beautiful picture (that inspired me to get into photography) told me I had to put that CD in right away. And I did. And the first note I did hear was rather a chord... one that came from an acoustic guitar. "An acoustic guitar in metal?!" This was new to me. I was intrigued. Then, there was this wicked riff. And it was good. 4 minutes or so into Advent, when the first major acoustic interlude kicked in, I was sold. Upon my arrival home, I would purchase Morningrise... but they didn't have it. So, I listened to MAYH in the store to ensure it was roughly the same kinda music (which it sorta was) and then bought it. Got Morningrise and Orchid shortly thereafter, Still Life and BWP as soon as possible upon their releases.

 

[Lakestream]

I first got in contact with Opeth when I discussed metal
with an online friend. We were talking about our favourite
bands and stuff. At this time I was listening mostly to
Blind Guardian and stuff like that (I still listen to BG.... they are
one of the few speed/power-metal bands that actually are good)

Wel, anyway, this guy told me that his absolute favourite band
was Opeth, and that I should know this band, since I live in Sweden. I asked him for the name of one of their shorter songs
(since I've got a slow modem), and he said "Demon of the Fall",
so I d/l:d it. When I first listened to it, I thought, he's got a really
cool voice. But I didn't fall for Opeth immediately. Next time I
put together a winamp playlist I included this song, and I noticed
how I actually began to hope that this song would be next.
A bit later I purchased BWP (this was like half a year ago, so
I'm a pretty new fan).

 

[svenske kocken]

I read an review of a pre-recording of Orchid in the swedish mag Metal Zone back in 1994 and thought that this Opeth band was something to check out. Then, in 1995, I read an review of Orchid in the mag Close-Up and a couple of days later I went to Malmö and bought the record.

 

[Kabab_k]

It was about an year ago(maybe more), when i've kinda started my journey into extreme metal. i was downloading 1-2 songs from any extreme band i saw her name. then i got to Opeth, 'the night and the silent water' was the first one i've downloaded. the riffs and the growelz at that time wasn't sound too special to me, but it was that simple quiet part that got me "do i like them? those who mourn and turn away.." many days after i was whispering those lines and hearing only that part of the song repeatedly. i was totally fucked up(in a positive way) by the emotional force of that part. then, i read somewhere that all of their songs got this acoustic moments. i've downloaded 'deamon of the fall', liked it, but it didn't got me. i decided to download morningrise, and so i did. the 3-4 months after, it was about(almost) the only album i was hearing, true love. i remember myself throwing the name Opeth into many music discussion in hope to find another Opeth lover(ho, what a nostalgia ). well, then i've got orchid and the rest is history....
these days i see Opeth as a band that in more 30 years from now musicians will look at it the same as musicians today look at the 70's prog rock scene.

 

[Heliologue]

i got into the harder music scene via "Candyass" by Orgy. So for a while, I was pretty much just into mainstream, nu-metal, etc. My tastes were getting harder with NIN and darker bands, and one day I bought the ID5 album (Century Media sampler) from a USed CD store. I listened to some songs, and when I first heard "when" i thought, "jesus! what the hell is THAT? what's with the growling?"

then i kept listening, and as soon as i heard the clean-vocaled ending, i fell in love.

now i love the growls, and i can't believe i was ever taken aback by them.

 

[Morningrise]

Opeth really wasn't hard for me to get into. I was just kind of getting into extreme metal and stuff when i first heard them on Metal Blades Blackend IV compilation, which includes mostly black metal, but some other extreme metal bands. The first Opeth songs I heard were Demon of the Fall and The Amen Corner, which really weren't hard to get into at all, in my opinion. But it took a few listens before I realized what an amazing band they were. But it was actually about a year after that when I finally found a copy of My Arms, Your Hearse in a store, and forked over the 20 bucks for a non-import price, jesus its a lot, but those of you who have ever shopped at Camelot Music here in America would know what I mean.

 

[warsofwinter]

When I first heard Opeth I thought it was really good , My first song was Arpil Ethereal , I thought the use of acoustic passages was fucking deadl , That song influenced me to change my writting style from stright forward death metal palm muteing crap to what it is now . So I bought the cd , I couldn't see how they could use clean vocals , it took me a while to adapt , but when I did I loved it and couldn't get enough of it .

 

[Obyeybyeogone]

I had just gotten into music pretty much and was listening to all that numetal bullshit. I was in the Napster metal room (back in the days when Napster was just getting big) and talking to some people. A guy came in and said, "everyone needs to get Opeth, they are incredible." I just kind of ignored him at first but got curious after a while, he recommended I download The Moor, so I did. While downloading it, he told me to listen to it three times in a row to get used to it (I had 56k at the time and an 8min+ song was a long download).

I started the song up and was kind of confused at why he liked it so much, being a numetal dipshit I didn't appreciate the progression of this song. I just kept talking on Napster while I listened and I heard the guitars kick in and I started paying attention again, I didn't really like it that much yet. I kept talking and then I heard it really kick into full speed, I was a little surprised at how different it sounded from what I had been listening to, once I heard the growling I didn't really know what to think, I guess my first impression was neutrality, I didn't hate it and I didn't really like it. Once it ended I started it again like he recommended, this time I liked it a little bit more but I didn't really expect to end up really liking it. The next day the song was kind of stuck in my head and I kept hearing the growls in my head, I knew I had to listen to it again when I got home, I did and liked it a lot, I also downloaded some more Opeth songs from all their albums (excluding BWP which wasn't out yet) from then on Opeth was one of my favorite bands and I listened to less and less numetal and more and more real metal, I eventually shifted completely over. And yes I bought all their CD's i'm not an MP3 bum, I just get the MP3's to see if the CD is worth buying.

 

[benny]

Evil Edith

You said you didn't know The Black League had a new MCD out. Well if you haven't heard it yet their official site http://www.theblackleague.cjb.net has a few samples. It's called "Doomsday Sun".

 

[Liquid Tension]

My first thoughts were too bad the singer growls then I recognized the ying and yang of this vocal style! Now I'm hooked for life!

Enjoy the moment.....