Yours to keep: A change in musical perspective

[DreamingofUr]

Its sad how you don't have the urge to listen to a certain band anymore but its true for me for so many bands(Opeth included). Putting on any Opeth album, GR excluded, is kind of a formality now. Its already all in the head if you want it.

Opeth is the only band I've ever heard to release 5 albums I would call "epic". And I don't use that word lightly at all. Nile is closest runner up with 3. Anyway, Opeth really didn't change much for me but how much 1 band can wup ass in consecutive albums.

They really have come so far from when I started listening to them and I've enjoyed them more than any other band. Their recent albums just don't do what the first 5 did for me and now they are just an awesome band but nothing special to me. Not that their natural progression is bad its just not exactly my taste anymore.

 

[Hubster]

Opeth is probably the single most important band to the development of my appreciation for music. Obviously many of you can relate, as I’ve seen in many of the threads on here, they do something special for nearly all of us. For me, Opeth presented a sound that was unlike anything I had ever heard. It was a melding of styles, but with such a unique twist to it all that it could only be undeniably Opeth. They will probably always be one of my favourite bands… but listening to the same albums repeatedly gets tiresome, we grow and change, and what we once loved just doesn’t grant the same experiences. What are we to learn that we can take with us as we move along? What has Opeth taught you about music you didn’t know how to look and listen for before you knew them?

The reason I bring this up is, I’ve grown a bit tired of the band. There’s only so many times I can listen to My Arms, Your Hearse before I don’t need to because the whole thing is stored in my head. It’s already there for playback if I want it. This WILL happen to you too if it hasn’t already, I promise… no saying when, but it always happens. Even the best music wears thin after so many repeated listens. The most important thing I’ve learned from the band actually comes from their first 2 albums. I know most of the newer fans don’t care much for Orchid or Morningrise, but there is something about those albums that Opeth never got right again. That thing is ATMOSPHERE. You could make a case against that, and I may concede the point, but Orchid and Morningrise have this introspective allure to them that I’ve never forgotten. How many of you have listened to these albums while drifting off to sleep? That is how I actually first got into Opeth. Listening to Morningrise on my headphones before bed one night when I was home alone. I fell asleep early on, and was slowly brought awake by the last 4 minutes of The Night & The Silent Water. By the whispering, I was pretty much laying there sweating. By the time the simple acoustic guitar outro hit, I was completely in a “zone”, one I’d never been in from music before. I laid there for the next 40 minutes completely captivated by what I was hearing, right to the end “why can’t you see that I tried, when every tear I shed is for you?”

That remains as one of my best musical experiences, completely unforgettable, and it was that night I started with my understanding of ambience and atmosphere. As cool as later releases are, there just isn’t the same depth of that particular feeling to them. I have been looking ever since that night to replicate and expand on that kind of feeling, and that was Opeth’s gift to me. Every once in a while there will be a band that does this to you and spurs you in directions you would never have imagined yourself going, and I think that is in some ways much more valuable than simply discovering a single band to adore. So, I want you to think about it for a moment, and explain what it is that Opeth has taught you. I want to know what it is that you were not aware was being done in music that Opeth has gotten you interested in, and where that has taken you (if it has for you yet).

VERY good post Mumblefood. It's about time someone posted something decent around here.

Getting into Opeth moved me from straight metal, eg Maiden, Megadeth, Kreator etc etc and into the realms of more complex structures in the music I was seeking.

Opeth has done some great things for my appreciation, and like you, I have had a great time with them.

But since some time ago, I have moved onto to what I consider still-evolving bands, and most of these are in Black Metal, which I feel is a genre still reasonably uncharted (post-first generation). Also, Doom is starting to evolve again further as well, with bands like Monolithe writing Doom in major key (which is quite amazing when you think about it!).

Opeth's loss of atmoshere began with Blackwater Park. While the technical brilliance continued, the miasma (excuse the pun) began to fade and thin, to the point where now, they have produced an album which has no soul and yet attempts to.

It is too polished, too clean and too flawless. An old saying goes "flaws are also attributes". Without flaws, this album has no character. It feels "built" rather than "written".

Technically, it is a decent record, but thats about where it ends. Opeth, in my opinion, wasnt about technical brilliance. It was about DARK EMOTIONS. Forests, rain and loss of love. Stories of love and loss, with destruction as it's canvas.

I feel Opeth's evolution is complete. I seriously see them doing only one more record and then thats it, their circle into the progressive style is achieved, and I dont feel that there much more that can be done with it unless they evolve their metal from Death into Doom or Black or something else.

Opeth has taken me on a good long ride, but like some others, and I think many older fans, I feel the ride has ended.

 

[Rossaroni]

This is a great thread!

I think I can already see a consensus forming: Opeth has changed, either directly or indirectly (like the pied piper metaphor), us. On a seperate note, Hubster, you have officially piqued my interest in black metal, and you should list a few bands that a total newbie to the genre should start with.

Anyways, on topic. The first Opeth song I heard was The Moor. Fitting, because I still consider this as one of the top songs I've ever heard. The song was good, but when the chorus hit with Mikael's clean vocals, I just basically shat myself.

After that, I bought Morningrise. I agree with your point about the unique atmosphere in Orchid & Morningrise, Mumble, although I think that atmosphere is most prevalent in Morningrise (read: Black Rose Immortal).

I think the core of this whole idea we're chasing has to do with atmosphere. Opeth was the first band I had ever heard to create such rich, vivid, and self-contrasting environments inside a single song--nay, inside a mere 2-3 minutes of song. I had liked a few bands before Opeth, especially Incubus (Make Yourself), and I realize now that I loved Make Yourself because of the atmosphere it created. Songs like The Warmth would just take me on a journey. It comes as no suprise to me now that every time I think of skiing, or snow-capped mountains, or really almost any cold snowy environment, I think of Make Yourself. I didn't just listen to Incubus on my trips to Colorado, but I found that I enjoyed (hehe) Incubus more than any other band.

Where Hubster differs, I believe, is in the technical structure of the music. This may be a moot point, however, because where else does the atmosphere of a song come from? Perhaps voice, but you could even go so far as to place that in the technical category...oh, but I may be going beyond my bounds here.

I have yet to get tired of Opeth. I've grown tired of a lot of music. Maiden, for example. I love Steve Harris, but the only reason I bought Dance of Death was for the title track and for anything else that came from the mind of Harris. I never liked songs as much as the ones he wrote.

On a somewhat related topic: has anyone else noticed a certain attachment, mood, or just something different about a lot of band's first albums? For me, Opeth's, Maiden's, Iced Earth's, Metallica's, and (to cut the list short) Sabbath's early material stand in some other category than the rest of those band's catalogues. Maiden's original album, in fact, is one of my all-time favorites. Somewhere in Time and 7th Son were good for a while, but for some reason those albums didn't quite last like Killers. Iced Earth's Days of Purgatory album is another all-time favorite of mine...

Am I chasing a ghost?

 

[Mirrored Ghost]

Well, i haven't got Ghost Reveries yet. I'm going to get it this weekend probably. I downloaded it the day it leaked, and listened through twice. There was definitely a lot that i did enjoy a great deal (the first full clean section of GoP pretty much made my jaw drop), but i decided to delete it and wait to have my copy before listening. So i don't really have an opinion on the album yet.

Since GR is quite a departure from what they have done previously, I'm sure you'll find yourself enjoying this album all the more with repeated listens and hopefully you will no longer have that feeling of being tired of them. Definitely takes more than two listens to absorb it all in.

Getting more selective definitely happened to me too. It's a bit of a strange phenomena really... i look at it this way. My tolerance for other genres went WAY up, and my tastes went much broader than before... but at the same time, i became much more picky about what it was i liked about each of the genre's i enjoy.

That is exactly what happened to me. I'm on a never ending search for something different to listen to. When I eventually find something I like, there might be only a few bands in that particular genre that I enjoy. For example, I just got into post rock, but only a few bands interests me (Godspeed You Black Emperor is one of them). Others just bore me.

 

[Whrehound13]

Okay, let me admit that I havent read every word of every post on this thread (its early, Im tired...), but to get back to the original post...
"So, I want you to think about it for a moment, and explain what it is that Opeth has taught you. I want to know what it is that you were not aware was being done in music that Opeth has gotten you interested in, and where that has taken you (if it has for you yet)."
Like most Opeth fans (I guess anyway), I came from a metal background (Slayer/Testament/Anthrax/Early Metallica, etc...), but I also spent a lot of time studying musicians of different genres (blues,jazz, classical, etc....) and the first thing that grabbed me about Opeth was that not only were they technically (sp?) brilliant, but that they were able to bring so many elements into their music and still have it make sense. I love Obituary, but if they were to throw in a folksy acoustic interlude into the middle of "Chopped in Half", it just wouldnt make sense. See, not only do they bring in all these different influences, but they all make sense within the structure of the song. If youre not paying attention, you wouldnt necessarily notice that they go from Brutal to Beautiful because the transition is so seamless, like it was always meant to be there. That is one thing that amazed and enthralled me from the get go.
Another point that I feel is woth mentioning is that while epic and progressive are definately accurate when describing Opeth....sometimes it is the simple things that make their music amazing. Take the song Deliverance. Yeah I know, theres a lot of people that really dont like the song or the album, but I dont really care, I think they are both great. The last, what, almost 5 minutes of that song consists of basically a single syncopated riff with minor changes, yet to me, it stays interesting. Just hearing Martin go from just hitting his crash to alternating between his China and crash bring a whole new element to the riff and keeps it fresh.
The other thing that amazes me about this band is that no matter how many times I listen to ANY of their albums, there is always something new to discover. I only recently really came to appreciate the "atmosphere" that the Thead starter reffers to in Morningrise and Orchid. While I always loved those albums, I simply had other reasons to do so.
As far as where Opeth's music has taken me.....the biggest change is on my own songwriting. No Im not trying to write the next MAYH...but instead, I have just become a lot more open minded to the concepts of "dynamics" within a song. Blastbeats are great, but when the drone on throughout the entire song, they lost their power because theres no other dynamic to compare it to. See, to me, the end of GoP is so damned heavy BECAUSE of the mellower parts that come before it.
Okay...Im now going on almost 36 hours without real sleep so Im going to stop before I embarrass myself.....

 

[CAIRATH]

I agree that newer Opeth albums have lacked atmosphere. I mainly attribute it to the fact that the folk influences from the old albums (Orchid up to and including Still Life) have been more or less replaced by 70's prog influences. Some people seem to love that. But to me it just doesn't evoke the same feelings and emotions as their old music did. For lack of a better word, their old stuff sounded kind of morose and... forresty. Which I loved. Their new stuff is just much more deeply grounded in the warmer prog rock sound, which I just do not like quite as much (I'm not really a huge prog-anything fan).

This was especially evident on Deliverance which really is devoid of feeling for me. I liked the album at first but it just doesn't hold up on repeated listens because the more you listen to it, the more obvious it becomes how barren the album is. And now I never actually feel like listening to it anymore. I haven't picked up Ghost Reveries yet either so I don't know how the new album is.

 

[zortz]

No matter what we say here, Mikael is going to do his own thing. I've heard him say before that he was sick of the style of their earlier releases like /Morningrise/, the harmony guitars, etc. He thought it sounded stale and dated. (I'm trying to remember where I heard/read this, but can't...<sigh>)

Opeth is a band that is going to change and do unexpected things, and as fans you just have to accept that. They can't record Orchid, MR and MAYH over and over. I think all their albums have atmosphere, just different sort from the first albums. If you want to call this selling out, or losing their fire, or whatever, that's your perogotive, but I prefer to see it as evolution. There isn't an Opeth album I dislike. They're all different from each other, and I think we're all the more fortunate because of it.

Just my $.02.

 

[CAIRATH]

No one in this thread has said anything about selling out. Their sound did evolve. But not everyone has to necessarily like the direction they've taken it into. I can totally understand that Mikael didn't want to stick to the same style over and over again, but overall I happen to like the style of the first half of their career better than that of the second half. But the Deliverance/Damnation double album fiasco might also be part of why I feel that way. Because I really do like BWP a lot eventhough it sounds kind of different. But D1 and D2 just lack something. Which I think might be caused by the fact that both albums were kind of rushed and large portions were written while they were in the studio under huge time pressure. They remedied that with GR so hopefully I'll like that one better again.

 

[Jude]

Opeth hasn't really gotten me into metal (I have very low tolerance for metal, so the fact that I like Opeth says a lot about how good they are). It was actually their acoustic parts that I got into first...I think it went 'well I like this song, but the death vocals really kill it' to somebody recommending Damnation, to kind of tuning out the death vocals and listening to everything else, to kind of letting it all sink in. I'm still a much bigger fan of Mikael's clean singing (he has a fantastic voice) and personally I think the clean singing over metal parts are the most effective parts of their songs. But I do think some of the growling parts really work well, like Demon of the Fall.

I've never gotten tired of a band either. Although when I first get into a band in a big way, I listen to them all the time, then they just gradually become a solid part of my music collection, I don't stop listening to bands.

I do prefer the more folk and classical influenced acoustic parts to some of the newer prog-influenced parts, but I still love the new stuff. I wouldn't want the same album over and over again.

And the more bands I get into, I think, the less selective I get. I used to be really picky about what music I listened to and cringe every time something I didn't like was being played (especially rap, or punk, or nu-metal) and although I don't really like those genres, I'm now a lot more tolerant of their influence in some music, and I know there are some really good and talented bands in them.

 

[dorian gray]

good thread mumble. like hubster, i think the ride might be over. i can't tell yet, though, if it's me or opeth. or most likely, a combination. i'm deinfitely dissapointed in GR though. TGC might be one of the worst songs i've heard on an album i've purchased.

as far as atmospheres, i think it's fair to remind us that mike gave fair warning. i think the quotation was, "we will *never* go back to the orchid/morningrise sound". too bad. i love the early albums. sometimes "progression" is annoying and unnecessary.

 

[the_3_toed_sloth]

Interesting thoughts. I do know exactly what you mean when you say you no longer feel the urge to play the album anymore, as its all stored upstairs, but ironically, i feel like ive been to that place, and moved past it. I know each song so intimately that while there is no more surprise left to the songs, it is like talking to an old friend again each time i put it back on. The songs are so well written and satisfying that i just feel really comfortable putting on Opeth, as i know it well, and enjoy it. I can't really listen to it as often, but ive been broadening my interests pretty substantially recently (mostly into prog), so i dont find that a problem.

I do disagree that albums after the first two lacked atmosphere...they just changed the atmosphere so radically each time. Even Deliverance had its own form of magic...an absolutely barren sonic world, with thunderous drumming competing for breathing space with soaring, fluid guitars, while (in my opinion) vocals unmatched by any other album reign supreme. Much more direct and blunt, yet creating its own darkly beautiful aural structures in a chasm of silence. I think people get upset that in this album there is only the essential sounds, equating this to mean no atmosphere, but to me this album could not have been done any other way. It is not any other Opeth album, nor like any other Opeth album, so should not be produced like any other Opeth album. It is a beast unto itself, one that I think takes alot of effort to really appreciate, but once you do, oh maaaaan, it rewards you.

 

[pac1288]

Yeah I uderstand what mumblefeet is saying.

And I could relate to this too. It's as if Opeth never really reached a peak with there Orchid and Morningrise type style. They should have done at least one more in that vain and maybe it would have been perfection.

I to was very disapointed when My Arms Your Hearse came out. Even though it was a great album I wasn't really expecting something so drastic. I wanted something similar to Morningrise and I don't mean a re-hash of that album I mean taking it to another level like they already have with there most current style. That's what Opeth should have done for there third effort, it's like they left many of there fans in suspense.

I got over it though. I had no choice because all the successors are good also, although I can't say I was ever that impressed with Mendez's bass playing(although it does suit Opeth's current style) as I was with Farfalla's. Because Farfalla's playing and technique was part of that secret formula that made those albums what they were. And Farfalla wasn't even that great either and don't even start with your comments on how Akerfeldt wrote all the bass lines because I'm not going to take that as an answer. The point is that Farfalla had a good technique and had the ability to play the bass the way that he did.

Anyway it would be nice to hear one last album like there first two, but in a innovative type of way. That would be nice!:Spin:

 

[Manbient]

I should clear up one thing, not that this thread is supposed to be about me or anything, but OVERALL, i think MAYH is the best Opeth album. The album flow remains unmatched (it's an ALBUM, not a collection of songs... and i like my music to be ALBUMS, not songs), the most emotional in regards to the heavy parts (never again did they make heaviness so emotional... think end of April Ethereal, When, "The path we never spoke of" from Amen Corner, and of course Demon Of The Fall), and basically it had EVERYTHING good about Opeth when they go "heavy" done in one place. It's just that there isn't the unique atmosphere of the first 2, which was, for me, the most important thing i learned to appreciate from Opeth.

 

[DreamingofUr]

As gay as it sounds, there are just moments in Opeth songs that are so awesome no band really touches that on the emotional level for me. April Ethereal and When are perfect examples, along with Apostle in Triumph and The twilight is my robe. Heaviness never sounded so beautiful until I heard those songs. /cry

 

[pac1288]

Well yeah exactly I also think My Arms Your Hearse is one of there best(after it clicked that is which was around the year 2000) if you put it in perspective with the others. That's the one that has the most replay value in my opinion. April Ethereal, The Amen Corner, Karma, and When are simply stunning; I love those fucking songs to death.

BUT deep down the caverns of my heart I wanted one last album like the first two that's it. It hasn't happen though and unfortunately I don't think it ever will, which is to bad really(yeah I know cry me a fucking river)but that's just the stance on my end.

 

[milkman]

Always liked the feel of Orchid/Morningrise better.

Very unique.. haven't heard anything like them.

 

[TheButcher]

Getting more selective definitely happened to me too. It's a bit of a strange phenomena really... i look at it this way. My tolerance for other genres went WAY up, and my tastes went much broader than before... but at the same time, i became much more picky about what it was i liked about each of the genre's i enjoy. lets say, for example, Instead of liking 300 metal bands and nothing else, i went to liking 20 metal bands, 10 classical composers, 12 ambient artists, 6 jazz musicians, etc... It was like i felt i just didn't have time to listen to stuff in the style i liked if it wasn't the very best. No point in listening to a not-quite-as-good version of another metal band i liked, which used to be fine for me since i didn't have other stuff to spend time getting to know and listen to.

That's exactly what happened to me, i became a lot more selective with my music, I owe that to Opeth

 

[Jude]

I think pretty much all the Opeth albums I've heard create atmosphere...I think Still Life does it best. Orchid and Morningrise do it well too, but the lack of a unifying theme makes it less effective than Still Life. I haven't listened to MAYH enough times yet to know for sure what I think of it. I'm about to start doing that now. I think GR creates quite an atmosphere too, but it's all a matter of taste.

 

[Austin]

"I don't read reviews as a rule and the criticisms I get from fans tend to say more about that person than it does about the music. For example some people who think we are a "progressive rock" band have been very critical about the song direction. Of course I don't take it seriously when one of these people tells me Stupid Dream or the new album is "crap". What they mean is that the direction does not appeal to them. So I would be foolish to listen to anyone else's opinions but my own or the rest of the band. Better to create an audience, not cater for one."

-Steven Wilson

 

[FUBAR]

Great Quote