OPETH Week On Maidenfans (8/25 - 9/1)

Favorite Opeth albums? (Pick up to 3)


  • Total voters
    10

Mosh

PM me your Nightwish album rankings!
Staff member
Black Sabbath week may be finished, but don't hesitate to continue discussion there if you wish.

Since this week is a release week for Opeth, I figured it would be appropriate to to dedicate this week to them! Discuss the new album as well as everything and anything else related to this forum's favorite Progressive Death Metal act.

I also asked for three selections in the poll, as opposed to five, since Opeth have far less albums than Sabbath. I included the new album in the poll even though it's probably still early for anyone to have it ranked, but it's been "out" for awhile now so who knows.

Talking Points:
  • What are your thoughts on Pale Communion/Opeth's new direction
  • Favorite/least favorite Opeth songs/albums?
  • Do you prefer Opeth's Death Metal or more Progressive styles?
  • What do you think of the live albums? (Earl's Court, Lamentations, Roundhouse Tapes
 
Just in time for the Survivor (still not ready :p) :D

I only like Lamentations from the live albums, the others don't have Martin Lopez, hence I don't listen to them.
 
Martin Lopez isn't that great. I can't think of anything he does that the new guy can't. Listening to Pale Communion now and the drumming is intense. One of the best parts.

CD shop didn't have Pale Communion and I won't be able to go back for awhile so I gave in and checked out the stream. Wow! Not gonna lie, I wasn't very excited for this one. I liked Heritage enough but it seemed middle of the road to me and meandered a bit too much for my likings. The songs themselves were great, but I could've done without the frills in between. Pale Communion definitely improves on that. None of the songs overstay their welcome and they stay exciting and interesting from beginning to end. Some artists are really good at beefing up their albums with little atmospheric sections to string together sections and songs; I'm thinking Devin Townsend or Pink Floyd as major examples. Opeth tried that on Heritage and it didn't really work. I think the reason for that is because they are really great at creating atmosphere within the songs themselves, so it's a bit arbitrary when they throw in sections that are for atmospheric purposes only. Take Baying Of the Hounds for example: The middle section is dripping with atmosphere, but it's still very exciting musically. The Ghost Reveries album in general is probably their most effective album as far as that sort of thing goes anyway. And part of why it's my favorite of theirs.

But yea, Pale Communion is a fantastic album. I'm officially sold on the new Opeth. I hope they do another death metal album someday, but if they continue in this direction I'm alright with that now. This album felt more like an Opeth album too. There are lots of songs like River or Voice of Treason which are totally unlike anything I've heard from Opeth, but then you have things like the Moon Above, Sun Below or even Goblin which is different for Opeth but still has familiar elements. I've had several moments where I was reminded of a pre-Heritage song when listening. I can't remember where it is since I don't know the songs inside out yet, but there's one riff that actually reminds me of the outro riff of Harlequin Forest! Heritage definitely didn't have moments like that, it sounded totally out of left field.

There is so much more life in this album too. Eternal Rains is so filled with energy, it has more life in the very first minute than in all of Heritage. The energy level doesn't drop either the way it does on Heritage after The Devil's Orchard. Cusp Of Eternity keeps the momentum going to create a very strong 1-2 punch. Things slow down a bit after this, but there are still plenty of high energy parts to keep this from being another chilled out and somewhat lifeless album.

Also: Riffs. This album is full of them. I think Opeth write the strongest Metal riffs since Sabbath, so it was quite a big loss when Heritage didn't have much in the way of riffs. But this album has them all over the place. Don't expect the crushing riffs of Orchid, but a darker more sinister approach to them. I love hearing Opeth riffs on cleaner and even acoustic sounding guitars. They did some of this on Watershed and Ghost Reveries, so it's one of those things that sounds unmistakeably Opeth to me. The creepiness of the riffs is something that Opeth has been doing for a long time and it's very welcome on this album.

So it's not death metal, but it's also not the wannabe prog rock that was Heritage. This actually sounds like Opeth, and it's totally worthy of the Opeth name. It can rock hard and it's pretty heavy, but heavy in a different way than Blackwater Park. It's more prog rock but it doesn't try too hard. It's a much more natural sounding album. Aesthetically I'd consider it closer to Damnation than Heritage.

More on Opeth later, but here's my newest rankings (with more of an estimation of where I think PC will land):
1: Ghost Reveries
2: Watershed
3: Blackwater Park
4: Damnation
5: Still Life
6: Pale Communion
7: Orchid
8: Heritage
9: My Arms Your Hearse
10: Deliverance
11: Morningrise
 
I've only listened to Pale Communion once, but I enjoyed it far more than Heritage upon first listen. There's a few songs that I really, really like.

I voted for Ghost Reveries, Still Life, and Blackwater Park in the poll. I've just started relistening to the whole discography in preparation for the survivor, so I've only made it through Orchid so far. That said, it dropped two places and is currently second to last in my album rankings.
 
So I'm not really into Opeth because I don't like the growls .I've heard like 5 or 6 songs. I've liked the songs that are sung normally so I obviously prefer their more progressive styles. I listened to Eternal Rains Will Come of the new album and I really enjoyed it, I'm definitely going to have to listen to the rest of the album today.
 
The growls are a bit of an acquired taste. I started by finding clean sung and instrumental parts that I liked so much that it was worth shifting through growls, and then I grew to love the growls after that. Now I love Opeth with growls just as much (if not more) than Opeth without.

Check out Damnation. It's all clean sung but it's a bit more Opeth-y than the last two albums. It takes influence from bands such as Camel or Porcupine Tree, but Opeth was already being influenced by those groups before that. I like to think of it as regular Opeth songs with the metal parts removed.
 
The growls are a bit of an acquired taste. I started by finding clean sung and instrumental parts that I liked so much that it was worth shifting through growls, and then I grew to love the growls after that. Now I love Opeth with growls just as much (if not more) than Opeth without.

Me and you both.

I'll share my opinions on the talking points later.
 
The growls are a bit of an acquired taste. I started by finding clean sung and instrumental parts that I liked so much that it was worth shifting through growls, and then I grew to love the growls after that. Now I love Opeth with growls just as much (if not more) than Opeth without.

Check out Damnation. It's all clean sung but it's a bit more Opeth-y than the last two albums. It takes influence from bands such as Camel or Porcupine Tree, but Opeth was already being influenced by those groups before that. I like to think of it as regular Opeth songs with the metal parts removed.
I'll have to check them out soon. From what I understand Opeth has a very hardcore following like Dream Theater
 
They're not anything like Dream Theater though so don't go in expecting much similarity. The only DT song that ever reminded me of Opeth is Repentance. Ironically, not only did Mikael appear on the spoken word section, but he also sang it live with DT once (and did a better job than JLB imo).
 
I'm with Mosh and Flash, I hated the growls at first but really loved the clean singing and instrumentals. Over time, I came to love the varying styles (especially within a single song). Opeth without both vocal styles feels weird.
 
By the way, that riff I mentioned earlier that reminded me of Harlequin Forest is in Moon Above, Sun Below. It's around the 7 minute mark and is played on organ, before guitar comes in. It kinda builds the same way too. Unmistakeably Opeth.

Elysian Woes is a very earlier Opeth like song too. It really sounds like a combination of something from Damnation and the softer parts of Watershed (particularly Hessian Peel). In fact, I'm listening to it now and wow, it could've easily fit on Watershed. This album has a lot of the traits that Heritage was missing that made me love the earlier albums so much. So it's good to know they haven't lost that.

I want to talk about other things later, but this album is dominating my listening this week. It's so addictive and the more I listen to it the more I hear the link between what they were doing before and what they're doing now. Heritage was a transitional album in that it saw the band immerse themselves in a bit of a new style, and Pale Communion is them grounding themselves a bit and combining the experiments of Heritage with their previous writing style. This is very much a logical continuation of what they were doing with Watershed.
 
I've not yet come to love the growls. :p

I really like the new album, the last three songs in particular. Beginning of River sounds like CS&N!! Then gets heavier. Very cool. Very Opeth.
 
Very Opeth. That's what I keep thinking when I listen to this new album. I think they've totally validated their new direction with it. Heritage was cool but it seemed somewhat directionless, all over the place, and very not Opeth. It made me worried about the band's future; no way would another album like that be very good. I feel a lot more enthusiastic about Opeth's future now.
 
I think that's a perfect summation of this album's direction, Mosh. It's everything Heritage should have been but couldn't be because Heritage was a necessarily aimless step in Pale Communion's evolution.
 
Heritage actually makes a lot more sense to me in retrospect. I wonder if Mikael intended it to act as a spring bard for future albums in a more prog rock direction. Like the debut album for a new band. And now that it's been established, we get to hear what it would sound like if Opeth made an album in this style, which is what PC is.
 
Heritage actually makes a lot more sense to me in retrospect. I wonder if Mikael intended it to act as a spring bard for future albums in a more prog rock direction. Like the debut album for a new band. And now that it's been established, we get to hear what it would sound like if Opeth made an album in this style, which is what PC is.

I don't know, I think it was more exploratory than intentional. I think he made it not knowing exactly what he wanted to do, hence why some of Heritage feels pretty choppy. Once he figured out that he didn't have to completely abandon the traditional Opeth sound to evolve, he wrote PC. If anything it would work better the other way around: PC would have made a much better follow-up to Watershed and would have eased listeners into the more experimental, less traditionally-Opethian Heritage.
 
I think the "all over the place" and non-focused style in Heritage is well intended. There are a lot of examples of that in 70s prog, where it's mostly about the atmosphere rather than ideas inside it.
 
As an album, I agree, but within the songs themselves I think Mikael wrote himself into a few corners. PC sounds like the fulfillment of what he wanted to do with Heritage.
 
Agree that Pale Communion is more focused (and better) than Heritage, though I actually liked Heritage. The title track, Devil's Orchard and Slither are really cool.

One other comment re Pale Communion: the sound quality is excellent. This is how music should be produced and mastered. Puts other metal/hard rock releases of the past few years to shame (looking at you, Priest, Maiden, Rush, etc.). Not a big fan of Steven Wilson's music, but he sure knows how to make other people's music sound great. Probably too much to hope Maiden fires Caveman and hires him for next album.
 
I wonder what a Steven Wilson produced Maiden would sound like. I don't know if he'd do it, from what I understand he's only into the more extreme types of metal, but it'd be interesting. I have a hard time blaming Caveman for the production issues on the last few albums though. Seems like that's Steve's fault really. Listen to the Rush and Dream Theater albums he produced, those sound amazing. Somehow I feel like Steve Harris would ruin even a Wilson produced album. :p

Anyway, I've been going through the Opeth discography for this week and have noticed something interesting: With the exception of one album, you could group every Opeth album in pairs of two. Not that they always sound the same, or even similar, but they can be grouped together for a number of reasons. So for my comments on Opeth's albums, I'll talk about them in pairs.

Orchid/Morningrise:
The early albums. Very poorly produced compared to the other albums and really different from what they'd go on to do. There isn't as much progressive rock influence here, but instead influences range from Iron Maiden to folk to even black metal. These albums are often disregarded by fans but I think they're really good. Orchid is really strong for a debut when you think about it. You've got these long intricate progressive songs with really strong transitions already. Honestly I think if the production was more up to snuff, these albums would be liked more. I mean, listen to them perform these songs on the live albums, they sound amazing. It's pretty much 100% impossible now, but I would've loved for them to redo those albums. Or play them live in their entireties or something.

Morningrise would probably be my least favorite Opeth album, but it still has some stuff I like. I think my main issue with the first two albums (especially Morningrise) is that songs are a little bloated. The transitions are good but, but taken as a whole I think some parts could've been trimmed or made into their own songs. But it's a minor gripe anyway, since most of the time when I listen to these albums I don't think about what song I'm listening to and just take them as single entities. Like movements in a symphony. This makes the music much more enjoyable to me and you get to focus more on the riffs and the songwriting, which was very strong even then.

My Arms Your Hearse:
This is the one Opeth album that can't be paired. And understandably so as not only is it one of the most different sounding albums, but a very transitional moment for them. I find it pretty underrated though. It's not at the caliber of their next albums, but I think it has some really great moments. It's a bit bloated with fluff pieces and some unmemorable tracks, but if you were to cut the flub, you'd have an album that is quite strong. It has some of my favorite Opeth songs, such as When and Demon Of the Fall (which would land in my personal top ten probably). Sonically it's very unique too in that it has almost no acoustic guitars. Opeth's sound has always been characterized by frequent use of acoustic guitars, so this album is quite the anomaly. There are clean sounding guitars, but they are drenched in effects and overall much different sounding than the acoustic guitars or even clean guitars that are used live. Plus the clean passages are a lot different and less folky than the first two albums.

This album is also transitional in that the band is starting to write in a more concise format; none of the songs exceed 10 minutes, whereas most songs on the first two albums exceeded that length. Opeth would go back to long songs on their next album, but these would be much more balanced and the word bloated will no longer be used again by me to describe Opeth's music in this post.

Still Life/Blackwater Park:
The two classic albums. These are easily the two most renowned Opeth and represent their sound best I think. These albums show the band's best balance of heavy and progressive. The last three albums were a bit more focused on death/black metal and staring with Ghost Reveries, the band egan to head in an increasingly heavy direction. And of course Deliverance/Damnation blatantly divided these styles. But Still Life and BWP really balance these well and are the albums I'd recommend to a an aspiring Opeth fan.

I don't have much to say about these, since they're pretty renowned and most of what could be said has already been said. I don't go back to these albums much though, admittedly. I like them, but I tend to go for Opeth's more progressive metal sound in later albums. Both are great albums though and a must for metal fans in general. Still Life is probably their most complex album, featuring intricate instrumental passages and odd time signatures throughout. BWP is a bit more on the atmospheric side, flows better as an entire album, and show a darker side of Opeth akin to their earlier albums but with the sound of Still Life continued.

To be continued...
 
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