OPETH DISCOGRAPHY RANKING GAME - #6 REVEALED

Mosh said:
TIL Mikael plays bass on this album. Honestly I don’t pay that much attention to the bass until Martin joins, so I’ll have to go back and listen for what y’all were talking about with the first two albums. I didn’t really notice a huge difference in that area on MAYH vs the first two albums.
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Definitely go back to those first three and focus on the bass. It's a marked difference on MAYH compared to the very jazzy, fretless playful bass work on the first two albums. Think And Justice for All in terms of doing nothing but following the guitars except you can still hear the bass on MAYH.
 
I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that I just don't listen to these albums often and haven't studied them that deeply. They're all enjoyable listens but I've never felt like there was much there beneath the surface. I'll look forward to having something different to zoom in on next time.

I'll give all three a spin in the next week or two.
 
Third to last for me too. I saw some people say it was the beginning of the golden era, and well it's correct in a way. The change from counterpoint to signature Opeth riffing does happen here, not on Still Life. On the other hand, there are still remnants of the black metal aspect, including the lo-fi production. The songwriting is getting more focused, but it's still a far cry from what came after: The Amen Corner and Karma have a bunch of riffs strung together in a way that makes me exhausted. Credence is meh. And yes the bass ain't bassing as well either. I miss the clarity of Morningrise. The positives: April Ethereal and When (especially that second half!) are great, and Demon of the Fall is a lot of fun. Most importantly: ride bell at 2:24 of April Ethereal :D

Oh, also, Prologue and Epilogue - just no.
 
I'm gonna need to give MAYH some more time. This is one of those albums that's really hard for me to digest unless its in full.

MrKnickerbocker said:
The lack of a real bass player also loses a lot of their fullness, especially coming out of the Johan years.
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Yes yes YES. The only bass part that stands out to me on MAYH is the end of The Amen Corner... I think.

Mosh said:
I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that I just don't listen to these albums often and haven't studied them that deeply. They're all enjoyable listens but I've never felt like there was much there beneath the surface. I'll look forward to having something different to zoom in on next time.
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There's a lot beneath the surface on the two Oldpeth albums, and the bass gets even tastier on Morningrise. I can't remember a single song other than maybe The Night and the Silent Water that doesn't have a silky smooth lead bass part. Hell, in the middle of To Bid You Farewell he's playing two bass parts at once.

Give them a listen with good headphones.

Also, for clarification:

Oldpeth = Orchid and Morningrise
Mehpeth = MAYH
Classic Opeth = Still Life up to and including Watershed
Nupeth = Heritage up to and including In Cauda Venenum
Returnpeth? = The Last Will and Testament
 
So far from what I have heard the new album is them reintegrating some of the metal elements into the Newpeth prog rock style. Not sure if I’m ready to consider it a new era for the band unless there is a more radical shift.
 
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7: Morningrise (tie)
7: Pale Communion (tie)
8: My Arms Your Hearse
9: In Cauda Venenum
10: Orchid
11: Sorceress
12: Heritage

Total score: 56


Morningrise highest score: 10 (@KidInTheDark666)
Morningrise lowest score: 2 (@JudasMyGuide)

Pale Communion highest score: 10 (@MrKnickerbocker)
Pale Communion lowest score: 1 (@KiDDo)

Our first and only tie of the game may come as a bit of a shock. At least around here, Pale Communion seems to be a more talked about and praised album compared to Morningrise, which is often lumped together with the debut album that scored significantly lower (Orchid scored 40 points which is quite a stark difference). I would have expected Morningrise to land close to Orchid, although I guess I'm also not surprised about any of the albums that it beat to land where it landed. It is a significantly better album than both the debut and My Arms Your Hearse, but is it as good an album as Pale Communion? That seems like a stretch.

When giving it more thought, however, I think the ranking makes a bit of sense. Morningrise and Pale Communion both represent the best of what Opeth has to offer outside their classic era and sound. Everything remaining on the list comes from the 1999 - 2008 period that they are best known/recognized for. Pale Communion might be the best Newpeth album, but there's probably only so far up an average album ranking that a Newpeth album can go. Likewise, despite being the best of their early work, Morningrise is still a far cry from any of the classics.

With that being said, I would say Pale Communion is a significantly better album and in some ways feels more like a classic Opeth album than Morningrise despite the lack of growls. A lot of the songs have that classic Opeth riffing and dark vibe. The songwriting is way more focused than on any other Newpeth album and I feel like you could squint and place several of the songs on Ghost Reveries or Watershed. Personally, I ranked the album higher than both Watershed and Deliverance. I think it has less filler than Deliverance even if it never quite reaches that album's peaks. Similar situation with Watershed. Both albums kinda feel like a hodgepodge to me, but Pale Communion is slightly more focused. It also feels like a more genuine representation of where the band is at the time (Watershed in a lot of ways is the Metal version of In Cauda Venenum where the band is just going with the motions). At the same time, I strongly believe that Opeth is somewhat incomplete without that metal element, so I can see why these two albums score higher almost by default (there is also a pretty big gap in points before the next entry).

Where Pale Communion feels like an underperformance, Morningrise feels more like an overperformance. Like I said before, I expected the first three albums to score a little closer together. I actually figured that both Pale Communion and ICV would do a bit better, maybe even Sorceress. There's still a cult following to the early Opeth albums and quite a few lists placed Morningrise in the top five, which just wasn't the case for most of the Newpeth albums. With the exception of a few outlier scores, very few lists placed Morningrise close to the bottom. I really like Morningrise and the album has grown on me significantly over the years, but I still think it only reaches so many heights compared to the amount of meandering riffing (of which the infamous Black Rose Immortal is probably most guilty of). Still, there are a lot of really unique moments and I would have loved to hear what Opeth circa 2003 would do with something like Advent.

Overall this result is probably the first major shock of the game. Not sure anybody would really associate these two albums even in terms of quality levels, but here we are!
 
Ludicrous result.

Morningrise is fine. I ranked it 10th. It features one brilliant song (To Bid You Farewell), one very good song (The Night and The Silent Water), one song that is fun but not very well written (Black Rose Immortal), and two immature attempts at the type of songwriting Opeth would excel at later in their career.

Pale Communion is a top five Opeth album (4th for me). It's the only Nupeth record that feels complete, that feels like the songs were actually composed as songs instead of as individual pieces and then stitched together. It has some of Mikael's best vocal arrangements and harmonies ever. It has a perfect album structure and flows wonderfully. Honestly it feels so organically tracked that I would believe it if Mikael said he wrote each song in sequential order. Mikael's voice is so passionate throughout and his harmonies are incredible.

The first three tracks are perfect. River is perfect. Faith in Others is perfect. Goblin is jolly good fun.

Sure, Elysian Woes is probably the weakest acoustic Opeth track and Voice of Treason is a little lesser than the rest, but the company those songs keep is immense.

I will defend Pale Communion to the death. If Nupeth gave us nothing else, they at least gave us one amazing album.
 
Gonna leave this open a little longer now that the forum seems to have stabilized a bit. There has to be more thoughts out there on Pale Communion and Morningrise!
 
Finished up my discography listen with ICV…and yeah, other than Lovelorn Crime, Garroter, “the river” part in Continuum and the end of All Things Will Pass everything just bleeds together into one big, kinda unmemorable slog.

Also I got bored and made this, an edit/cheap remaster to attempt to make Sorceress less bad. I think I maybe raised it one point at best?

 
My Arms, Your Hearse is a pretty polarizing record. This growly ghost story is easily Opeth’s most death metally effort, and in my opinion (as of this writing) the weakest of all their growly ones. Maybe. The wall-of-sound songwriting does little for me, but bits and pieces here and there still make it a satisfying listen. It’s a fairly consistent album, with the apex being a rather popular Opeth tune that I actually don’t think is overrated (unlike another that may or may not share the name of a Burt Reynolds movie).

1. Prologue. Dumb.
2. April Ethereal. It’s okay. The syncopated riff near the end saves what would otherwise be an average wall-of-sound track.
3. When. I find this song painfully average, on par with April Ethereal (but lacking the punch). The “whispers in the parlor” clean part is nice, as is the ending, but everything up to that point is more of the same mehness heard on the previous track.
4. Madrigal. I actually quite like this little interlude, as I think it’s creepy – it’s like walking through a foggy forest, alone and afraid.
5. The Amen Corner. My second favorite track on the album. The middle gets into the same thing that drags the previous two big tracks down – the dreaded wall-of-sound – but the riff-o’-rama in the first few minutes makes up for it. Also, that “and so I woke from my sleep” part is bad ass, in the same way that the middle of Serenity Painted Death from Still Life is. Eerie circles upon the waters!
6. Demon of the Fall. A treasure of early Opeth, and it’s no coincidence that it has several punchy dynamic riffs and a bit less of the wall-of-sound thing going on. The second section (after the incredible intro riff) is clearly the beginnings of the “Opeth sound,” a style that can be heard on almost every album through Ghost Reveries (and maybe even Watershed, I forget). And of course, the dynamic middle portion is the highlight of the album. Easily the strongest track here.
7. Credence. A much-needed break from the action, although I find it kinda boring up until the excellent outro.
8. Karma. I’ve always liked this song, and I’ve never understood why it’s the only track from the record that has never been played live. Just pure aggression and frustration here, as you can really feel for the ghost protagonist at this point. The more chill middle section is really catchy, and that outro is full-speed-ahead fun (probably not for the ghost, though).
9. Epilogue. This is actually a pretty pleasing track, and since I think it would’ve been weird for the album to end with the gut-wrenching ghost screams of Karma, I approve. It reminds me of something Satriani would do, and I like the bass being more in the forefront here.

Opeth would, of course, completely blow this album out of the water with their next effort, Still Life. But this little nugget of a record is a crucial part of Opeth’s early identity, and the band accurately captures the essence of what it would feel like to come back as a ghost and find your lover cheating on you in the parlor. I mean, we’ve all been there.
 
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6: Watershed
7: Morningrise (tie)
7: Pale Communion (tie)
8: My Arms Your Hearse
9: In Cauda Venenum
10: Orchid
11: Sorceress
12: Heritage

Total score - 67

Highest score - 11 (@KiDDo)
Lowest score - 3 (@The Dissident)

It's probably appropriate that the final album of Opeth's "golden era" is also the worst performing (and by a significant margin). It's notably higher than the previously ranked albums, but doesn't really come close to their best albums either. I feel like this album is often considered a transition between the Metal Opeth and Nupeth, but I find it doesn't have much in common with the later albums. In fact, I almost wish they had made more albums like Watershed where there's more emphasis on folky/proggy sounds and less emphasis on Metal, but there's still some Metal material and that general dark Opeth atmosphere. Even with the context of Watershed, Heritage feels like a pretty stark left turn. Ironically, the final track, Hex Omega, feels like the closest relative to Heritage to me.

There are a lot of things I like about Watershed. On songs like Lotus Eater and Hessian Peel it feels like the band is trying new stuff. The more melodic material/ballads contain some of Opeth's most memorable melodies. At the same time, you do get a sense of burnout, or just ready to be done with Metal stuff. Despite having some intensely heavy material, the album is at its most interesting and exciting when it goes in other directions. Even a song like Lotus Eater, it can't just be a metal song, it has to have clean vocals over blast beats or a funky breakdown toward the end. Sometimes it results in some of the band's most memorable moments, sometimes it feels like the riffs don't have the same intricacy/catchiness as before. Then there's Heir Apparent, which contains only growls and represents one of the sludgiest and heaviest Opeth tracks. If Mikael was trying to prove he still had it in him despite being pulled in different directions, I would say he was successful there.

A couple outlier ratings kept Watershed a bit lower than the other 00s Opeth albums. It's about 9 points lower than the next album, so any one list could have made the difference here. Generally it seems like people feel positively about this one, but it's not a clear favorite for anyone. No major defenders, but no major detractors either.
 
By a slim margin, I ranked Watershed at the bottom of my Top 5. That's down to the strength of the first half, with Heir Apparent being one of the most brilliantly brutal tracks in the discography, Coil and Burden being just downright gorgeous (minus that outro in Burden), and Lotus Eater being probably the most truly experimental song the band have ever done while still managing to write something worth listening to.

The second half, though, really dips hard in quality. There's nothing in those final tracks that touches the highs of the previous tracks. I can feel the lack of inspiration and the burnout while listening to it. They sound very forced, very unfocused.

If I were to re-rank again, I'd definitely put Damnation and Deliverance above Watershed based on overall quality.
 
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