HERITAGE

The most highly anticipated release of 2011 for me! I have been a die hard Opeth fan since Blackwater Park. When they announced that this would be an album without grunting I was excited. Not because I dislike grunting, but because they were trying something new (and because I liked Damnation).

So after spinning the album a dozen times, seeing them perform pretty much all of it live, what is my opinion? Well i gotta say, it's "meh" ... Akerfeldt's singing is very good, the drumming is good, the bass playing is outstanding, the keyboard is roaring, the guitarwork is...well its there and it doesnt bother me, so what is it? The problem I have with this album has been described by other users before: it just sounds like a series of repetetive riffs, and everytime a song should get to an exciting climax, it just stops. On the entire album there are only 3 interesting songs for me: "the Devil's Orchard", "the Lines in my Hand", & "Marrow of the Earth". The rest of the songs are basically either an incoherent mess, or very boring.

In my opinion Akerfeldt is trying too hard to incorporate as much styles as possible. The irony is that this open-mindedness results in a lack of criticism towards the high-standard of the music that Opeth usually provides. To me it seems like everything Akerfeldt wrote ended up on the album because it sounded different, not because it sounded good or even interesting. He is also getting abit carried away with the mellow stuff. During their last concert, they not only played alot of mellow songs, they also tuned down the heavy riffs from their previous songs (face of melinda, a fair judgment). He reminds me abit of a kid who's just gotten into the gothic scene, and now deems everything not gothic to be lame..

Disappointing