Opeth Week on Maidenfans (Aug 31 - Sep 6, 2009)

SinisterMinisterX

SinisterMinisterX

Illuminatus
Staff member
It's Opeth Week! Time to dig into some progressive death metal!

First, some administrative notes...
  • Next week's band will be Rush. Foro nominated them a long time ago, and somehow they slipped off the radar.
  • Nominations are still open!
    Remember, the requirements are: at least 5 studio albums, and a reasonably famous band so most of us will have the music to listen to.
    Most nominations so far have been metal - that's fine, but remember bands of any genre are acceptable. Let's get some more diversity here, shall we?
  • Please don't nominate Maiden, Bruce, Blaze or any other Maiden-related band. This is a Maiden forum; we discuss them a lot, when there's anything worth discussing. The idea here is to discuss other bands.
  • Trying to keep all the nominations in one thread, here's what we've got so far...
    Children Of Bodom (Perun), Primordial (Natalie), Alice Cooper (LooseCannon), Saxon (Yax), Apocalyptica (Onhell)
  • Next week, we'll have a poll to choose the band for the following week.


I haven't listened to much Opeth in the past few years. I checked them out about 2 years ago and wasn't very impressed. That's mainly because I'm not a huge fan of death metal and growling vocals, but my tolerance for that type of "singing" has grown over the past year. Also, I still haven't picked up Watershed, which has gotten very good reviews.

So I'm going to buy Watershed tomorrow (Monday, as I'm posting this late Sunday night). Yes, buy. Me, the notorious pirate, the guy who normally torrents at the drop of a hat. I've decided to start buying two actual physical CDs a week; it's high time I started supporting bands financially again.

Why 2 CDs? One will be new to me like Watershed, and another will be an album I've already downloaded illegally. I figure that I should own my entire collection legally around the year 3246.

And then I'm going to start digging into Opeth tomorrow, starting with Watershed. Over the last year, my tastes have shifted dramatically towards progressive music, and I think I'm now ready for some progressive death metal. So it may take a day or two before I start posting anything about Opeth here, but it will happen.

Finally, my nomination for a future band of the week is... Deep Purple.
 
Watershed is BRILLIANT and one of two "normal" albums for Opeth. The first being their first "Orchid." By normal I mean, while the songs are unusually long, they stick to a reasonably moledic structure. It is in later albums where the odd sig and tempo changes occur. They do it well and I love it, but they do both very well. Again, Watershed brings their careers full circle as it is a very melodic, 70's-ish, and rather bluesy IMO.

One of the things I love the most about this band aside from the song length is that Mikel can growl AND sing. The switch between the two are awesome. While most bands that do this require two people, he can do it all, heck he IS Opeth, specially now that  Peter Lingren quit.

My only sad note is that I  never got to see the "classic" line-up live. The drummer Mendez left due to anxiety attacks and Lingren left because he felt Opeth was too much of a business rather than a bunch of friends having fun. :( Oh well. They still kicked ass at the Watershed tour.
 
Pretty difficult question because some of them are quite different, and I am sure you could get different recommendations. Their latest two* studio recordings give a good idea about how they sound now. You can't go wrong with picking one of these to start with.

"Damnation" (2003) is an interesting sidestep. Very mellow and calm stuff without grunts, almost no metal. Some death metalfans were shocked to see such a new course but most of the Opeth fans have accepted it, I guess. After this experiment the band opened all registers again.

I myself have a weak spot for the first two albums "Orchid" (1995) & "Morningrise" (1996).
As a complete album, I'd say the second is a bit better.

morningrise_big.jpg


I'll try to explain the difference in style with the later work. On those two particular albums Opeth made nice contrasts between calm acoustic 'folky' passages (very atmospheric and also suspenseful!) and harder parts. Back then, the changes in the songs were sudden and the guitars were mostly based on very strong melodies, often beautiful harmonies (which is a treat for Maiden fans! ;) ). That aspect disappeared on the next couple of albums in favor of rhythmic driven guitars. I had the idea that their songs lost their melodical touch and at times I even found some songs very monotone, and plain boring and repetitive.

But since "Damnation" and the albums that followed ,*"Ghost Reveries" (2005) & "Watershed" (2008), Opeth have returned with an intruiging blend of powerful and psychedelic music.

So if you ask me, either start with the first two either with the last three but be sure to check them all.
 
LooseCannon said:
Can someone recommend the best Opeth album to start with?
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Either end of their career is a good start. Either Watershed or Orchid would be good. Either way save Damnation and Deliverance for last.

Damnation isn't Metal at all, it is a great jazz project and Deliverance is the hardest, heaviest album they've ever done. Both are one-time experiments.
 
I started with Blackwater Park, and then picked up Ghost Reveries and Watershed later.  I don't particularly like growling either but I get past it because the music is so unusual.  I don't listen to it often, I have to be in the right mood.  Haven't heard their earlier stuff.  The three albums feel pretty different.  I like Blackwater Park the least (more growling, is probably why), but I like Ghost Reveries and Watershed about equally well. 

Interesting (to me) anecdote:  My wife hates heavy metal.  Hates it.  One time, she got in my car, and Opeth was on, one of the really heavy crunching songs with the growling vocals.  She was actually scared.  I think she loved me a little less knowing that I listened to Opeth.  Since that time, whenever I wanted to play my music in the car, her reaction was: "As long as it's not Opeth."  Then, one day, she happened to be in my car when I was playing Watershed, and she heard one or two melodic songs on that album.  She asked, "What is this?  It sounds really interesting."  I told her it was Opeth.  She didn't believe me.  That, my friends, is Opeth. 
 
LOL, cool anecdote! I love scaring people by saying, "I'm going to play you some Proggressive, Swedish Death Metal," and proceed to play Damnation LOL.
 
Another good band for a future week just occurred to me that might be better than Primordial (more well known perhaps): Savatage.
 
cornfedhick said:
My wife hates heavy metal.  Hates it.  One time, she got in my car, and Opeth was on, one of the really heavy crunching songs with the growling vocals.  She was actually scared.  I think she loved me a little less knowing that I listened to Opeth.  Since that time, whenever I wanted to play my music in the car, her reaction was: "As long as it's not Opeth."
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Loved you less?  :blink:
Damn this sounds dramatic.
 
Forostar said:
Loved you less?  :blink:
Damn this sounds dramatic.
Click to expand...
OK, some editorial license to make the story read a bit funnier.  I don't think she really loved me less (maybe for a couple of minutes or so, but that's it).  However, we all have to come to grips with the fact that the average person off the street might be a bit taken aback by the vocals in, say, the first 60 seconds of "Ghost of Perdition."  Most people aren't used to this stuff.  Let's face it, the growling vocals are supposed to sound like a beast from hell.  Throw in the fact that my wife was brought up a strict Southern Baptist, and there you go. 

That said, I'm NEVER putting on Slayer in her presence.  I think there may be something really wrong with those boys. 
 
That's what cracks me about Slayer. Tom Araya has said in many interviews he is Catholic and there is a difference between what he does in his private life and what he does on stage....

But back to Opeth. They do scare people. They scared me! The first cd I bought was Deliverance and when "Wreath" came on I turned it off after 10 seconds and didn't pick it up again until six months later. Now it is one of my favorite songs :D
 
cornfedhick said:
I started with Blackwater Park, and then picked up Ghost Reveries and Watershed later.  I don't particularly like growling either but I get past it because the music is so unusual.  I don't listen to it often, I have to be in the right mood.  Haven't heard their earlier stuff.  The three albums feel pretty different.  I like Blackwater Park the least (more growling, is probably why), but I like Ghost Reveries and Watershed about equally well. 

Interesting (to me) anecdote:  My wife hates heavy metal.  Hates it.  One time, she got in my car, and Opeth was on, one of the really heavy crunching songs with the growling vocals.  She was actually scared.  I think she loved me a little less knowing that I listened to Opeth.  Since that time, whenever I wanted to play my music in the car, her reaction was: "As long as it's not Opeth."  Then, one day, she happened to be in my car when I was playing Watershed, and she heard one or two melodic songs on that album.  She asked, "What is this?  It sounds really interesting."  I told her it was Opeth.  She didn't believe me.  That, my friends, is Opeth. 
Click to expand...

I read that, I laughed out loud, and then I decided to give Opeth a listen to for the first time.  I didn't have any and got my hands on something yesterday, I'm gonna give it a few spins tonite-- Watershed.
 
I saw Opeth live last year. They put on a really solid performance but what really surprised me was how much fun the band members were. Mikael Akerfeldt especially. Between songs he'd have fun stories about growing up in Sweden, getting drunk with his friends and listening to Abba and Bathory in the same night. I never would have suspected he was such a mellow, fun-loving guy.
 
Helphyre said:
I saw Opeth live last year. They put on a really solid performance but what really surprised me was how much fun the band members were. Mikael Akerfeldt especially. Between songs he'd have fun stories about growing up in Sweden, getting drunk with his friends and listening to Abba and Bathory in the same night. I never would have suspected he was such a mellow, fun-loving guy.
Click to expand...

LOL, I know! That was awesome! Some drunk members of the audience weren't too happy about that, they wanted them to keep playing, but most people really liked it. I liked the story about him (Mikel) walking through the forest on his way to a rehearsal wearing yellow construction shorts and a mullet. hahaha
 
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