DELIVERANCE

Deliverance is a solid album, great production, Mikael's voice sounds better than ever. Standout tracks are Deliverance, Master's Apprentices, and For Absent Friends. I love the verses of the track Deliverance, very smooth and pretty. The end of the song is pretty original, Mikael said that the band attempts to avoid palm muting as much as possible, to try to avoid sounding like a cliche metal band, but when they do palm mute, they try to make it stand out. The last few minutes of Deliverance are an extremely hypnotic loop of an excellent offtime guitar riff. Even though it is extremely heavy, it puts forth a mesmerizing quality. Pretty awesome. Master's Apprentices is so heavy, it is awesome, with a nice little melodic breakdown thrown in towards the end. For Absent Friends is a simply gorgeous instrumental. It might not be as good as Blackwater Park, but as long as Opeth keep putting out albums of this quality, I will be happy.