DELIVERANCE

Opeth's Deliverence album is one of their few underrated releases. Deliverence was the album that followed Blackwater Park, which was somewhat of a breakthrough for the band. Deliverence is an album that is quite different from Blackwater Park.

Deliverence once again shows us why Opeth are the masters of combining heavy death metal parts with light progressive passages. The playing on this album is some of the most controlled from any band. Opeth writes some moderately complex music that sounds quite simple. The variation on this album is excellent, for the death heads there is the opening track "Wreath". For fans of the more progressive side of Opeth there is the third track "A Fair Judgement" which has some of the greatest guitar harmonies by this band. For all of you hippie fans of Opeth the closer "By the Pain I See In Others" will allow you to reminisce while producer Steven Wilson graces the wonderful hammond organ. The atmosphere on this album is cold, colder than the most prestigous scandanavian winters. When a listener is looking for a dark, variant, and melodic atmospheric album, Deliverence is the one.

The production on this album is fantasic. Give the credit to Steven Wilson. The drums have excellent prescence in both hard and soft parts. The guitars make very smooth transitions from electric distortion sounds to clean acoustics and vice versa. The bass is smooth throughout all of the album. The vocals are the best part of this production. The harmonies are rich, but difficult to pick appart. The growls are deep and quite clear for growls. Excellent job of production on all aspects of this album.