THE OPETH REFERENDUM MMXXI: Results -> Blackwater Park wins again!

Heritage starts off nicely with a somber, beautiful piano track. It never goes anywhere but I appreciate the moody darkness of it. Still, gets a vote.

The Devil’s Orchard is a pretty great song. It manages to blend old Opeth’s evil into the NuPeth and remains one of the better examples of it to this day. Even better live.

I Feel The Dark has a great start, and great first two minutes or so, reminiscent of Damnation. After that, it goes totally upside down and manages to ruin what could have been a good song.

Slither is a cool tribute with nice parts, but merely an average song. Opeth trying to sound like a different band doesn’t work.

Nepenthe is terrible. It has some vibe, but zero flow, zero interesting vocal sections, zero hooks. It’s a bunch of quiet, jazzy jam sections thrown together with “loud” parts that aren’t good. Contender for their worst song.

Haxprocess absolutely sucks, too. Awkward vocals, barely audible acoustic guitar plucks with children talking sound fx, and blatantly bad transitions. Fading out and fading in with a different section multiple times per song means you never wrote a song, you wrote pieces. Another contender for worst song.

And Famine makes three! Three of the most poorly composed songs in the entire discography in a row! The intro makes no sense. The piano transition makes no sense. The vocals are yearning, I guess, but still awkward. The guitar transition is fucking horrible. A cool riff comes in that sounds like old Opeth, but like old Opeth trapped in a cage, before the return of Latin percussion and more awkward vocals. A cool riff comes in after a terrible drum fill, covered up by some weird flute. It’s probably the best riff on the whole album, but it’s caught in a fucking terrible song. Oh look, it’s a tacked-on, pointless piano outro with sound FX!

Lines In My Hand is fine. I’ll give it a pass because it’s too short to offend me much.

Folklore is long-winded, but it’s really quite good. The intro is a bit unnecessary but the Damnation-style groove that follows is fantastic. There’s still plenty of awkward vocal lines here, but the song comes together as a whole despite constantly sounding like it might fall off the rails. The last two minutes are easily the best piece of music on this whole record and point directly towards the more driving, melodic nature that would emerge on the following album.

Marrow is another great bookend, but it’s not gonna stay in the game so might as well cut it now.

Pyre is solid, but the lyrics are a bit lame. At least it feels like a song instead of a riff tape. This should have been on the album instead of a handful of others, but still isn’t strong enough to move on.

Face in the Snow is tunefully melancholic and better than most of this album. If Opeth is gonna be this light, I far prefer this to what we got on the proper record.

Throat of Winter is just awkward all around.

I understand that people defend the vibe of this album over the individual songs, but I personally despise that in an album. The best Opeth works because the atmosphere enhances the overall composition. This record is atmosphere for the sake of atmosphere. It may be sonically challenging the listener, it might be an adventurous experiment, but neither of those change the fact that the songs simply are not good.
 
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Voted for Heritage, I Feel The Dark, Slither, Nepenthe, Häxprocess, Famine, Marrow Of The Earth, Pyre and The Throat Of Winter.

None of the PC stuff deserves to go at this point. Face In The Snow easily the best song from Heritage, as The Devil's Orchard is way better live, with proper production.
 
tBF6Jyp.jpg


Eliminated after Round 6:
Marrow Of The Earth - 7 votes
Heritage - 6 votes
Slither - 6 votes
The Throat Of Winter - 6 votes
 
This round has me realizing I actually do enjoy the middle stretch of Heritage quite a bit. All of those songs are a similar level for me and kinda blur together though, so choosing is hard. So for now I’m choosing to vote for the bonus songs + I Feel the Dark, and then voting for the last two PC songs to promote Eternal Rains, Moon Above, and River (probably my top three from that album).
 
River
Voice
Feel
Hax
Famine
Lines

Pyre and Face are both good songs that should have been on the album proper. Orchard and Folklore sit alone in the top tier of Heritage. I love the vibe of Nepenthe enough to spare it this round, but it's not top tier.

As for Pale Communion, Eternal, Moon, and Faith are easily the three strongest tracks on the album. I'm bummed that Cusp was voted off already; it's a straight "rocker" but it's energetic and ominous with a great solo. I like Goblin, too, but I understand its departure.
 
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Eliminated after Round 7:
I Feel The Dark - 6 votes
Pyre - 6 votes
Häxprocess - 5 votes
Famine - 5 votes

Watershed joins the game!
 
Less concerned about the reasons for the newer Opeth, as I'm not as familliar with them, although I'm voting to promote "The Devils Orchard"

In regards to Watershed I'm voting to promote: The Locus Eater, Burden and Heir Apparent. Although I have back ups...
 
Nepenthe + Lines
the second half of Watershed

The change in the core Opeth songwriting style happens here, beginning with Lotus Eater (which is only saved by having some pretty high moments throughout). The absolutely random changes, heavy keyboard focus, near inaudible single instrument sections…aka everything I hate about Heritage. Mikael is clearly in a state of flux and you can hear it in every song. Heir Apparent and Burden are easy winners because they feel fluid, like the best of Opeth, instead of like chopped up bits of random musical ideas. The latter half of Watershed is a bore for me. Unmemorable and dull, and a true negative sign of what was to come.
 
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