MY ARMS, YOUR HEARSE

This album is Opeth third studio album, which was released in 1998.

This is my second Opeth album, after Ghost Reveries and also it was my first time to listen carefully to death metal song. At first, I was surprised, because many folks on Dream Theater forum said Opeth is pretty much like Dream Theater. So, I bought Ghost Reveries without even try to download it from the internet, just to find out what are the songs like. But then lately I found that progressive (death) metal is very good, its better than the conventional death metal style, it has more feeling.

Anyway, My Arms, Your Hearse is Opeth first concept album, means that it has one story behind it and the songs tell us the story. The story is about a grudge, a man who died because of his relationship with a woman. So the man died and becoming a ghost who try to find out about his death. In my opinion, its pretty much like the concept of Dream Theater's Scenes From A Memory, but here, I am not really sure whether he was murdered or not. The woman also realizes the existence of his soul that she feels a great sadness. The complete story can be seen on the CD cover which is also the lyrics of the songs..

Prologue - Just by looking at the title, it explains everything, the intro of the album and its just a short song, more like the introduction of the story. The song represents the funeral of the dead man I've mentioned above.

April Ethereal - The continuous part from Prologue, starts off with heavy guitar and vocal style along with crazy drumming. The song composition is just amazing, and at some part, I feel like the composition is somewhat like Metallica's Nothing Else Matter. My favorite part is at the fourth minute, real good composition. "I knew it was the coming of Spring, and thus our April Ethereal", that is taken from the CD cover. It was the time when the story began, it was the time when his spirit came to earth and tried to find out about his death.

When - The intro is a clean acoustic guitar, very relaxing and mellow. However, it changes when the vocal begins, just like Ghost Of Perdition, starts of with mellow intro and followed by death metal vocal. The story is just the process of the soul finding out about his death. This is when the soul or the man knew that the woman was involved in his death, although its not physically.

Madrigal - This song is considered as one of mellow songs in the album, besides Prologue, Credence and Epilogue. The song also quite short, just about one minute, there is no vocal in this song, just clean acoustic guitar sound.

The Amen Corner - The season had change, and now its summer. "Hiding within The Amen Corner. White summer. So far I have gone to see you again." The song is just very metal and heavy. My favorite spot is the guitar solo section at 5:01, the solo is quite long, although its not really hard-fast-shred style, but it really fits the song, perfect. However, its such a shame that the song composition of the song is not really different with other songs, just a combination of heavy death metal and a bit of mellow spot in each song.

Demon Of The Fall - The songs starts with some keyboard synth, really cool, follows with great guitar riffs. The intro is quite simple but really can create a certain ambience of sadness and darkness. Now, its autumn, and the soul still finds the secret about his death. Now he knows that the woman's pure love had change to pure hate which involved in his death. At 4:47 I heard Mikael Akerfeldt's sound like he never sang like that before, along with beautiful composition (rhythm guitar and drum section), really good, that I can feel the sadness of the story. The song ends with clean acoustic guitar section, represents the sad and hate ending.

Credence - Another slow and mellow song. Even though the composition is very simple, but the song is plain amazing, really beautiful with sad and dark lyrics. This is when the woman faces the Karma, that she was involved in the man's death.

Karma - Without any single clean slow intro note, the songs starts heavily, very dark death metal. For me, the best part of the song is at 4:41, when the sound changes to more metal style, very good. After that, follows with another death metal part. The story is about Karma of course, that the woman will pay what she has done that creates the man to die

Epilogue - Means, the ending of a story, and now, the time is winter, a farewell of a long journey to find the mystery behind a death. ".and always welcoming Winter's Epilogue. There is was. The final destiny. A sunrise that never came, still the nightlamp that never faded away. Farewell was the word, and the afterglow was the brave morning. Rising and telling everyone about the beauty of its Prologue." The song is an instrumental song, quite simple instrumentation but really beautiful.

If you notice, the story is about repetition, that after winter, spring will come, and after Epilogue, there will be another Prologue, and I believe it's the main thing here. I give five stars to this album, because of its great musical composition and great story behind it.

Timur Imam Nugroho - Indonesia

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