Opeth

By Request, Part 1 - Orchid:

  • Total voters
    12
It’s the Opeth musical none of us knew we needed. Right now §6 is my jam; the solo section is straight out of a Symphony X song. This is one of the most progressive albums I’ve ever heard. My only complaint is that I wish it was 10 minutes longer, as the songs are so jam-packed with content and vocals that the music often doesn’t have enough room to breathe.
 
Night Prowler said:
New album still slaps.
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It still hasn’t clicked with me.

I like parts. I like the growls. I like the heavier guitars.

But there’s just a massive change that happened around Watershed where the primary contrasting genre changed from folk to jazz. Opeth are always a metal (or rock) band at heart, but it was the folky contrast that always drew me in. Jazz does literally nothing for me.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
But there’s just a massive change that happened around Watershed where the primary contrasting genre changed from folk to jazz. Opeth are always a metal (or rock) band at heart, but it was the folky contrast that always drew me in. Jazz does literally nothing for me.
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I don't know, harmony-wise, it felt always more jazzy than folky to me (e. g. Harvest doesn't really sound like any folk/folk rock band I know; the soft parts of Deliverance; the explicitly jazzy stylistics of Dirge intro, For Absent Friends etc...)


Nonetheless, after thirty years worth of career, to release something that sounds absolutely idiosyncratic and fitting the band's name, yet so unusual, daring, intriguing and overall... new, I mean, whether you like the album or not, Akerfeldt is a legend.
 
They definitely can get too jazzy for me; the growless albums in between Watershed and the new one have a lot of this. It’s difficult for me to find emotion in jazz, and a lot of it just seems like musical masturbation to me. That said, I don’t hear much of that on the new record at all. Yeah, there’s a few parts here and there, but there’s a lot more sinister tonalities at play (tracks 4-7 in particular).
 
JudasMyGuide said:
I don't know, harmony-wise, it felt always more jazzy than folky to me (e. g. Harvest doesn't really sound like any folk/folk rock band I know; the soft parts of Deliverance; the explicitly jazzy stylistics of Dirge intro, For Absent Friends etc...)

Nonetheless, after thirty years worth of career, to release something that sounds absolutely idiosyncratic and fitting the band's name, yet so unusual, daring, intriguing and overall... new, I mean, whether you like the album or not, Akerfeldt is a legend.
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I'm not saying the jazz wasn't always there, but so was the folkiness. Perhaps, if we're being extremely pedantic, as is our wont as Opethians, we could use the word "acoustic". The predominant contrasting sound to the loud/distorted/metallic sections of Opeth up until Ghost Reveries was acoustics. Starting with Watershed this shifted much more towards 70s prog/jazzy keyboards. Since Heritage it has virtually become all keyboards - whenever there is a contrasting tonal or dynamic shift, it's a scale played on a keyboard, some jazzy as fuck drumming, etc. etc.

I miss the acoustics. It's what spoke to me as a fan. I'm not saying that what they're doing now is bad, it's just not my preference and doesn't strike any resounding emotions within me.

I think the vocal melodies are a big part of it, too. Akerfeldt's vocal melodies have shifted a lot more towards being atonal, chordal shapes instead of the catchier, more melodic stuff you would have heard on the older material (and, actually, particularly on Pale Communion).

Detective Beauregard said:
They definitely can get too jazzy for me; the growless albums in between Watershed and the new one have a lot of this. It’s difficult for me to find emotion in jazz, and a lot of it just seems like musical masturbation to me. That said, I don’t hear much of that on the new record at all. Yeah, there’s a few parts here and there, but there’s a lot more sinister tonalities at play (tracks 4-7 in particular).
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Definitely there's more stuff going on in the "sinister" department, but the jazzy keyboard transitions and note-by-note vocal melodies remain.

I don't know. I want to love this new album, but literally nothing has clicked for me with it besides a couple riffs.
 
I would say less “jazz” and more 70s prog particularly bands like Camel, Goblin, Magma, King Crimson. I agree with Knick’s overall point though, the folky influence found on the pre-Watershed albums is still nowhere to be found and the new album, despite having growls, is challenging to classify as metal. I love it though, it’s Mikael confirming his legendary status.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
I'm not saying the jazz wasn't always there, but so was the folkiness. Perhaps, if we're being extremely pedantic, as is our wont as Opethians, we could use the word "acoustic". The predominant contrasting sound to the loud/distorted/metallic sections of Opeth up until Ghost Reveries was acoustics. Starting with Watershed this shifted much more towards 70s prog/jazzy keyboards. Since Heritage it has virtually become all keyboards - whenever there is a contrasting tonal or dynamic shift, it's a scale played on a keyboard, some jazzy as fuck drumming, etc. etc.

I miss the acoustics. It's what spoke to me as a fan. I'm not saying that what they're doing now is bad, it's just not my preference and doesn't strike any resounding emotions within me.

I think the vocal melodies are a big part of it, too. Akerfeldt's vocal melodies have shifted a lot more towards being atonal, chordal shapes instead of the catchier, more melodic stuff you would have heard on the older material (and, actually, particularly on Pale Communion).


Definitely there's more stuff going on in the "sinister" department, but the jazzy keyboard transitions and note-by-note vocal melodies remain.

I don't know. I want to love this new album, but literally nothing has clicked for me with it besides a couple riffs.
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Yeah, I don't feel exactly the same, but I get where you're coming from.

To me the change is more about the contrary, the heavy side of spectrum, the "death feel", the br00tal melodies and harmonies, those that were observable even in the softer and acoustic sections, that's what I find missing since cca Watershed and what has never came back. And even with this album being rather heavy and everything, it still doesn't really have that, despite the album being pretty much 10/10.
But the burning leaves, the old clock, the cobwebs, the derelict mansions, the Autumn-Sehnsucht feel, that's not there anymore, even when they try.

Mosh said:
I would say less “jazz” and more 70s prog particularly bands like Camel, Goblin, Magma, King Crimson. I agree with Knick’s overall point though, the folky influence found on the pre-Watershed albums is still nowhere to be found and the new album, despite having growls, is challenging to classify as metal. I love it though, it’s Mikael confirming his legendary status.
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Yep, I think it's different in their entire shtick, soft and heavy, kinda like pre- and post- Swordfishtrombones Tom Waits - I mean, it's recognisably him, technically it's similar (taking inspiration from pre-war Americana, kinda, although in a different way), but it's completely different and I get why some people like one or the other era only. At least with Last Will, I think they achieved the pinnacle of Newpeth and I'm quite satisfied with them doing something I love, even though it's different that the stuff I fell in love with them originally.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
But the burning leaves, the old clock, the cobwebs, the derelict mansions, the Autumn-Sehnsucht feel, that's not there anymore, even when they try.
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This is actually what I miss the most.
JudasMyGuide said:
Yep, I think it's different in their entire shtick, soft and heavy, kinda like pre- and post- Swordfishtrombones Tom Waits - I mean, it's recognisably him, technically it's similar (taking inspiration from pre-war Americana, kinda, although in a different way), but it's completely different and I get why some people like one or the other era only.
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This is a pretty fair comparison that I hadn't really thought of before, though they achieved the inverse: Tom Waits became a Halloween carnival whereas Opeth left the spooky rides behind to become some jazzbo songsters.
 
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