Where to start with Opeth

[Orion Crystal Ice]

I would say 'Morningrise' and 'My Arms, Your Hearse'. 'Morningrise' is far and away my favorite, while it may sound random at times I find it has the strongest structures in a row of any of their albums, and the bass work adds such an amazing extra dimension. The atmosphere is still lively on that one, whereas I find it to be stale-sounding on something like 'Deliverance', and the songs just plain move me. 'MAYH' is where they start with their wall-of-guitar-noise thing but I think it's the peak of it. Yes, 'Blackwater Park' does seem to be the most popular but it's too inconsistent for me. I love half of it and the other half makes me comatose. At this point, I wish they would find some new scales and stuff to write in on guitar, or at least do something else within their niche, because musically IMO it's been totally boring most of the time on the heavy stuff for the past few albums. On the other hand, the soft prog rock sound they've been throwing in sounds better and better....and with that I will also suggest 'Damnation'..

 

[Matt]

BWP. I love GR and Watershed as well though.

 

[Belligerent]

On the other hand, the soft prog rock sound they've been throwing in sounds better and better

yes indeed it does

 

[genocide roach]

BWP. I love GR

awe, i love you too... (no homo)
~gR~

 

[Satanstoenail]

I started with Blackwater Park. I also finished with Blackwater Park.

 

[Blind Guardian]

Listen to their albums in chronological order, but stop after the second one.

You don't understand their music after Morningrise so be quiet.

 

[Savern]

Still Life was the album that made me appreciate growling. Before my friend got me that album I really wasn't into death metal or any metal with growls in at all. Still life changed that. The emotion and story on the album is incredable.

However, if you ask 9 opeth fans what their favourite album is you will most likely get 9 different answers. I appreciate Orchid and Morningrise and love some of the songs on their. But Opeths sound matured so much from those albums in my opinion. ITT people have said that the structure on the first two is excellent. I completely disagree. BRI is a great example of Mike's immature writing style at the time. The song is basically long for the sake of it and has some seriously dodgy transitions, normally just "drum fill to new riff"; something which was still there on MAYH but was pretty much absent on SL. People bitch about GR but for me its got some of the strongest songwriting of any album they've put out.

Anyway, the only album I wouldn't suggest is Deliverance. The title track is my favourite Opeth song, but the album is pretty hard to get into if you've not heard some of their other stuff before.

 

[Omni]

You don't understand their music after Morningrise so be quiet.

I understand it just fine. I just don't really enjoy it.

 

[Blind Guardian]

Not a reason to tell him not to check it out though.

 

[Omni]

No reason aside from the fact that he was asking for opinions on what Opeth albums he should listen to.

 

[Nightmare_Heaven]

I fell in love with Morningrise almost straight away, coming onto Opeth from a background consisting mostly of atmospheric black metal, that album instantly appealed to me. I'd heard their more recent albums and at the time they just did nothing for me.

These days I can appreciate just about all their stuff, I think Deliverance is one of their best albums. Morningrise and My Arms, Your Hearse are probably my 2 favourites though. Special mention to Orchid.

Tbh I think Opeth these days are quite hit and miss...Watershed didn't move me, and I wouldn't say an album like Ghost Reveries is their best although I do enjoy some of the songs. Also seeing them live for the second time a day or 2 ago, they didn't blow me away or anything.

 

[Blind Guardian]

No reason aside from the fact that he was asking for opinions on what Opeth albums he should listen to.

He asked what would be good to start with, not what to avoid.

 

[genocide roach]

i fell in love with vagina straight away...
~gR~

 

[Allfader]

Funny thing is that I agree with this. I never enjoyed Opeth that much, the only albums that I enjoyed to some extent were the first 3, after that it all got too predictable.

That's the way it is. Get MAYH and Orchid and u're done. SL is still enjoyable to some extent, but SL is more of the same than MAYH but is more filler songs. BWP is too way overrated, Deliverance is half decent and GR-WS are shit.

 

[waif]

tbh of the opeth i have (bwp, watershed, sl, mayh, damnation, gr, the roundhouse tapes) the only 2 really worth having are MAYH and Damnation, as MAYH is the best normal Opeth album (all of those being impossible to tell apart, stylistically stagnant, and fairly unmemorable) and Damnation is actually different from the others.

 

[MasterOLightning]

Still Life is their worst album probably (saying probably only because I have no interest in hearing Watershed), and I made a list of about a dozen reasons why one time. Too lazy to recite them now. But it's an extremely flawed album. Not the charming kind of flaws like you might find in the first two albums.

WAIF does not listen very intently to music if he can't tell apart the past few of their albums. Most bands change a lot less between albums. Somehow I'm not surprised by that.

 

[Cythraul]

I disagree with the underlying presupposition of this thread. To ask 'Where should I start?' is to presuppose that you should start.

 

[The Ozzman]

I disagree with the underlying presupposition of this thread. To ask 'Where should I start?' is to presuppose that you should start.

As much as I like Opeth, this made me laugh

 

[General Zaroff]

Of course an OPETH thread would make it to 3 pages easily.


Orchid and My Arms, Your Hearse are my favorites.

 

[Omni]

Of course an OPETH thread would make it to 3 pages easily.

Much like many Opeth songs, it's gone on for around 3 times as long as it ever should have.