BLACKWATER PARK

After "Still Life", the excellent album that positioned Opeth at the top of the general esteem for their special way of combining elements of progressive rock with those of Death and Black Metal, the expectations regarding the next steps of the Swedes had the bar set very high. And it is in this context that "Blackwater Park", the band's fifth album, confirms their outstanding level.

Although it doesn't have the conceptual character that unites all the pieces of a story, "Blackwater Park" does share similarities with its predecessor regarding the instrumental framework , and draws on concepts such as despair and loneliness to generate sharp and extensive corrosive narratives, such as the explosive and deathly "The Leper Affinity", the painful "Bleak", or the dark dynamism of "The Funeral Portrait", full of piercing and demonic riffs, a consistent percussion synchronized with the developments that each piece demanded, and the guttural and cavernous voices of Mikael Akerfeldt, maintaining that swampy and murky character, tinged with the recurrent acoustic bridges and aseptic voices that come and go, which give that characteristic stamp to the band. And with the contribution of the brilliant Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree, co-producer and guest musician, they round off with the intricate "The Drapery Falls", one of the most brilliant moments of the album.

The expected moment of instrumental oxygenation comes in the form of the melancholic "Harvest" and its semi- unplugged aridity that reflects on the acceptance of mortality, and the sober "Patterns in the Ivy", a brief and elegant acoustic exercise, precedes the final unloading of the infectious "Blackwater Park", which condenses the overall mood of the work with those devilish riffs from the Akerfeldt - Peter Lindgren duo, an intriguing arpeggiated interlude and again Akerfeldt's vocal chords snapping to the album's contrastingly austere acoustic close.

"Blackwater Park" is one of the cornerstones of Opeth's discography and an indispensable reference of the genre.

Excellent

4/4,5 stars