OPETH

''The potential of Morningrise''

Morningrise is an album that my opinion has changed drastically over time, being the second album by Opeth (my favorite band), Morningrise was an album that I already loved, but which I currently think is the weakest the band has ever made, the least inspired, the messiest and certainly the least consistent, the debut, Orchid, is not perfect, it is quite flawed in fact, but because it is such a substantial album, I end up loving it, what makes Opeth, Opeth is there, less developed, but with the band proving the bright future they had.

Their second release is the last album from the melodic black metal phase and the band last album to feature Johan DeFarfalla on bass and Anders Nordin on drums and percussion, with a total of 5 songs (6 if you count the bonus version) with them all having lengths of 10+ minutes, with the way I'm describing them, all the songs are pretty flawed, right? well.

The album starts with Advent, and Advent... is fantastic... absolutely fantastic... holy [&*!#], what a way to start an album, this song catches all the mistakes of Orchid songs, the lack of structure, direction and cohesion, and corrects them, I say without a shadow of a doubt, that this song is better than any of Orchid, and one of the best that Opeth has ever done? Wait, brother, are you saying all this even though you think the album is weak??? yes, continuing, Advent is a wonderful start, the mix is ​​much better than in Orchid, Mikael and Peter release riff after memorable riff that is very melodic, Anders Nordin gives a great performance, and Johan... man, I really like Martín Méndez bass, I really like it, I started to appreciate the guy more, but Johan has a stunning bass performance, very creative and mesmerizing the way he plays, an aspect that is worth praising about Morningrise which is much better than in Orchid, are the acoustic, they are more present and certainly fit better, the more macabre and atmospheric feeling of the acoustic is less present, but something more melancholic and eclectic, which is certainly an interesting change, an aspect that would be present in the other albums, With that, I would say that Advent is the culmination of this formation, an incredible song that even though it's 13 minutes long, it doesn't seem like it, it's all very well structured, and very well executed, this song has some of the most powerful rhythm sections that Opeth has ever done, and so, the track ends, with a quiet acoustic, slowly fading away... incredible track, and then comes the next one, The Night and the Silent Water, you know? One thing that Morningrise gets a lot right and that I like is... how lonely and melancholic the songs are, and The Night and the Silent Water further intensifies this feeling that Advent established, it's less fast and more mid-tempo, giving even more emphasis biggest in acoustics, this one in particular has a sad story behind it, it's about a relative of Mikael who ended up dying during the production of the album, he wrote a lyric in honor of this relative, it's one of the most beautiful and saddest that Opeth already did it, with Mikael vocals sounding more ethereal, as if we were seeing someone's memories, and then, the music becomes more powerful, sadder... and the final part arrives, with the most beautiful acoustic that Opeth has already played, the percussion slowly returns, the melodic riffs are more present, with Mikael singing the following lines.

''Yet the night and the silent water Still so dark''

In a macabre way and full of pain, and then, the song ends, with another quiet and solo acoustic...

THE BEGINNING OF MORNINGRISE IS AMAZING, the band has evolved a lot, the songs finally have structure, the acoustic is better implemented, the riffs are more interesting, Johan has his best performance as a bassist ever, and everything is very atmospheric, beautiful, 2 incredible songs, so why? Why is Morningrise my least favorite, with all this praise? weeellllll... here things get more complicated...

and the next song is, Nectar, and... Orchid problems came back, where, where's the structure, where are the well- implemented acoustic sections, where's it? where is the formidable consistency of the other songs... yes, Nectar brings back what made Orchid flawed, and that wouldn't be a problem... if it were an Orchid song, but it isn't, it's a song from an album that brought 2 extremely competent compositions that solve the problems of the previous album, Nectar simply doesn't compare to how good Advent and The Night And The Silent Water were, it's the most forgettable of the album and the lowest point an Opeth performance has ever reached, What saves it is Johan DeFarfalla's performance, which is surprisingly his best here, the ending has a bassline that, oh, is awesome, but otherwise, the weakest on the album.

The next song on the album is the penultimate one, the ambitious Black Rose Immortal, simply the biggest song Opeth has ever done in their entire career, 20 minutes long, and it's better than Nectar? Yes, it's better than Nectar, actually quite competent but... the song suffers from something that I'll talk about later.

it's quite adventurous, going into several different sections, slower or faster, Mikael gives a very interesting performance on the vocals here, making it sound like an epic poem, there are a lot of really good riffs here, and Anders Nordin performance is his best here, but even with all that, I can't think that she comes close to the first 2 songs, Black Rose Immortal is ambitious, and going back to what I said about what she suffers, and that's where it is, it's 20 minutes of an Opeth song, and this is a huge weight for this song, I love it when Johan bass is so present in one part, but I don't really like half of it, I love Mikael and Peter's riffs in many parts, but others I just don't care, I love the part where there's only Mikael vocals, as if he were a ghost... do you see the problem? Black Rose Immortal is a song with very good sections in the middle of sections without anything interesting, which sound drawn out, uninteresting, it's an inconsistent song that also inherits from Orchid's problems (and interestingly enough, Black Rose Immortal WAS supposed to be an Orchid song, this has been confirmed, so... yeah...)

Hmpf, going from 2 amazing songs to 2 pretty weak songs was a more disappointing deal than play Megaman X6, and then, the last song arrives, To Bid You Farewell. the first soft song that Opeth ever made, after this drop I had low expectations with a very critical eye, but I can easily say that To Bid You Farewell is my favorite soft Opeth song, bringing back everything that Morningrise got right in the 2 songs, unexpected, I know, anyway, this is an absolutely beautiful song, the acoustic is well implemented, the vocals are ethereal, structurally great, with the jazz elements being very well fitted, and then, after powerful riffs, the song ends with an acoustic and drums along with Mikael's voice, in a hypnotic atmosphere, with Mikael finishing the song with these following lines.

''Why can't you see that I try When every tear I shed Is it for you?''

and then his voice disappears, and just like that, Morningrise ends...

It's easily Opeth weakest point, Morningrise is an album that I have mixed feelings about, a amazing start, with a disappointing half, and a very good ending, this album had a lot of potential to be even better than Orchid, better production, better lyrics and Advent and The Night and the Silent Water being perfect, with a sharp, inconsistent, but fascinating things, Morningrise is the lowest point in Opeth career, it's a good album, in the middle of masterpieces, I keep listening him and appreciating it, but he had potential, he had, good album, but Opeth weakest album.

Damnation is Opeth most different album, even from the prog-only lineage, coming after the brutal and heavy, Deliverance, its successor has a softer and more melancholic nature and originally together with Deliverance, it was supposed to be a double album with the first part heavy and the other soft, exploring in a fixed way the 2 sides of Opeth sound, and during my journey with Opeth, I already listened to it, however, after finishing all the albums of the heavy lineage, I thought about relistening because my opinions was not so formed about the album and... what an experience! I will be more different in this review and address what I think of the album in a more separate way.

Mixing: one of the best mixes I've heard on an Opeth album by Steven Wilson who already mixed the legendary Blackwater Park, it's very reminiscent of something from the 70s considering the influences of Opeth's prog bands (like Camel), the sound is clear and the volume is consistent and the instruments work very well, it is harmonious and very pleasant to pay attention to how each musician plays.

Composition: Because it is not heavy and the songs are softer, Damnation has the freedom to have several changes in the structure of the songs, and wow, everyone here plays with mastery, Martin Lopez is an excellent drummer, very jazzy, Mikael Åkerfeldt and Peter Lindgren are guitarists with a lot of chemistry and they present very memorable and dark riffs, expressing many different feelings as they switch from section to section, and Martin Mendez shines a lot as a bassist, the tones and his way of playing present well-planned melodies, a focused and subtle bass with its versatility, oh, and Steven Wilson plays here too, great mellotron and contributes well to the album.

Atmosphere: As said before, a soft and melancholic album, the atmosphere here is very immersive, the times I listened to this album, I felt like I was exploring someone's memories, and well, Opeth's lyrics were always about imagination, never in fact exploring specific concepts and quite open in interpretation, in this album, it is the same thing, all quite intriguing such as ''Death Whispered a Lullaby'' and ''Windowpane'' which gives even more atmosphere to this album are the Mikael's beautiful vocals, I love and love them here, he has always been a vocalist with duality between having powerful heavy vocals and calm and beautiful vocals and here, he fully explores the soft vocals, an incredible performance and a quality atmosphere.

In conclusion: Damnation is quite special and perfectly explores the soft side of Opeth, all the songs are fantastic and the album as a whole has a good replay factor, the melancholic and engaging atmosphere, a dark album that expresses many feelings of sadness in many ways with an eclectic composition, an incredible release, both for getting it right, being quite bold, in its proposal, if you, by chance, wanted to listen to Opeth, but don't really like the songs that contain Metal, this album is for you, perfect in every way and a release that I will find myself relistening to several times.

10/10

This release captures a compelling live performance from Opeth, hailing from right towards the tail end of their metal era; Watershed had been out for nearly two years when this April 2010 concert were recorded, and the band were still some months away from entering the studio to record Heritage, heralding their stylistic shift from prog metal to a more purely prog-based approach.

In this case, the results are excellent. The band are working with songs which have had extensive road testing. Moreover, the format of the concert makes this an apt tribute to Opeth's past before they moved on to a significantly transformed future - for the concert is divided into a first act in which the entire Blackwater Park album is performed, and a second act in which the band pick out and play one song from each other their other studio albums to date in chronological order.

Blackwater Park is, of course, a stone cold classic - an album where the band's prog influences and death metal roots achieved a seamless fusion, carrying enough of their past to be an appropriate album to focus on for this journey through their career whilst also exhibiting enough of their innovations to suggest the seeds of future developments. The second half of the set allows the band to take us on a whistle-stop tour of their musical evolution, and the "one song per album" approach allows them to showcase the absolute cream of the crop, with the band erring towards epic pieces to perhaps give each album a fairly expansive showcase. (All of the songs in the second half are over ten minutes long except Hope Leaves from Damnation - and none of the songs there hit the ten minute mark.)

With the recording of Heritage a few months after this concert, an entire new chapter of Opeth's existence would begin - but this concert is an excellent summation of their previous incarnation, and will be of interest to all Opeth fans.

Deliverance, the album that was made to be Opeth's heaviest, is quite infamous for Opeth fans who see that it is divided between albums of heavy lineage, it came after Blackwater Park, which was highly acclaimed and evolved into what the predecessor Still Life did, to be honest, Deliverance is almost a 5, ALMOST, but I feel like it's let down by the not very good mixing, and that's probably one of the reasons why a lot of people don't like it very much, coming after the aforementioned Blackwater Park doesn't it helps, as it was a very remarkable album due to its very high level mixing, here, the sound is more rigid and closed, which actually suits the album, but I will be critical when I say that it could be better, in all other ways, I like very very much Deliverance, the 5 songs (For Absent Friends is an interlude) present a lot of versatility and consistency that rivals much of the band's best works, it's an album that I always find myself revisiting and rarely not finishing, because of how interesting and consistent it are the songs, the album has a great sense of direction from section to section, as it is focused on being heavy, the acoustic moments are not as present, and that is an interesting choice, when they appear, they are very climactic and mysterious always, every time. the songs are essential to the album and none are weak with the title song of the album, being the best heavy song that Opeth has ever done, 13 mind-blowing minutes, all the musicians are incredible here, Martin Lopez as the drummer is phenomenal here, Peter Lindgren and Mikael Åkerfeldt release killer and incredible riffs all the time, and Martin Mendez and his bass are quite consistent and the tone is great, unfortunately, what doesn't make it a masterpiece is precisely the mixing that doesn't do justice to how good the compositions are, otherwise, Deliverance is excellent, but it loses to the other albums due to its not very good production, but it gets it right in every way and I highly recommend it, unless you don't like heavy music.

Despite having a prog-heart at its core, I have almost always preferred the classic Opeth era until 2008, originally because of its progressive metal leanings but later even more because of the ominous and serious atmosphere, riffing style and acoustic vs brutal contrasts. Opeth have opened several doors for me: death-metal and other progressive extreme metal such as Enslaved. In 2012, at the time of the "Pale Communion" release, my expectations were relatively low after the average "Heritage" album. This album marked the most evident stylistic permanent change but still kept enough roots into progressive metal. 3 years later, Opeth paved way to a much higher dose of symphonic/psychedelic and 70's retro progressive-rock ( around 1970-1973. The improvements over Heritage is improved songwriting, more streamlined output as if Akerfeldt felt now more comfortably to ask as a prog-rock musician. Having said that, it's also the Opeth album with the highest amount of cliches (borrowed from prog-rock/hard- rock) and their own recycling a la Watershed unless Sorceress. We have three categories of songs, I'll start with the one I plainly dislike - straightforward hard-rock anthems. It was "Slither" on "Heritage and it's "Cusp of eternity" here. They have a good melody and a likeable guitar solo but the songs as such are boring to me.

The second, most populous category, is represented by retro prog songs. Here, I can't stop the feeling that many such intensive moments are more self-indulgent than they are good. Examples are overly loaded riffs, not naturally busy drumming, compare it to a normal car that gets 6 wheels instead of 4. "Goblin" is an example of an elaborate instrumental which plays more than what is has to offer.

The third category are mellow moments where Akerfeldt's voice, now having its clean vocal improved from the past, really shines and there is suitable instrumentation. "Moon above, sun below", "Elysian woes" and "Faith in others" are good examples. These two songs also convey that Akerfeldt is a good songwriter in the classic sense, having sense of melody, motives and exquisite taste of chord sequence. If you listen to the final chord sequence at around 5:25 mark in "Faith in others", it feels like a fork entering your heart, a true beauty.

My verdict is mixed - Opeth doing prog is not as good and original as Opeth doing death/prog metal. I'm saying that as a seasoned progger who listened to hundreds of prog--rock/metal albums. For a casual prog listener, this could be a much more rewarding listen. Regardless of any of my criticisms, this is the best Opeth album of the 2010's followed by their 2019 output. I will give it 4 stars because there are still multiple moments of treasure and beauty to be found.

This one's a bit of an oddity. Released as part of the promotional work preceding the release of Heritage, the title track is one of the studio cuts form that album, which saw Opeth take a hard turn away from their metal roots into more purist prog territory. However, by far the bulk of the material - and what most Opeth fans will be interested in - is their live appearance from 2009's Rock Hard festival, which would have been in the wake of the release of Watershed. As a result, you get a quick preview of what is essentially a whole new style for the band (though The Devil's Orchard is one of the more energetic tracks on Heritage) followed by a festival set played in the style they were about to shift away from.

I suspect a good many Opeth fans who track this one down will find themselves simply skipping the opening track most of the time - not because of any problem with its quality, but simply because if you're an Opeth fan who likes their post- Heritage direction, you already have Heritage, and if you aren't this ain't going to sell you on it, and regardless of which type of fan you are you're really here for the festival set, not the studio album track you probably already have heard on the album itself. Still, it's worth a listen, particularly to hear the band interpret some of their metal works live at the point when they had taken that direction of their sound about as far as it would go.

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

Lamentations captures a truly excellent Opeth live performance. Recorded in September 2003, this meant that the gig took place around a year after the sessions which yielded the Deliverance and Damnation albums. The entirety of Damnation - Opeth's left-turn into quieter progressive rock - is served up here, followed by a selection of six louder tracks, three from Deliverance and three from Blackwater Park, providing a rounded view of Opeth's musical universe as it stood in the early 2000s.

With prior eras of the band's work pushed out of sight entirely, this finds Opeth at the cutting edge of their distinct style of progressive metal, steeped as it is in drawing on progressive rock and extreme metal techniques rather than following the trajectory of past prog metal practitioners such as Dream Theater. This certainly represented a fresh and eye- opening offering for prog and metal fans alike in the early 2000s, and remains potent to this day.

Far from the musty and dreary sunless scenarios of previous works, the conceptual "Still Life", Opeth's fourth album, describes the tragic love story of a couple in times when questioning ecclesiastical mandates was most often paid for with one's own life, and in the process, a critique of religious expressions and their rigid norms. The first-person narration is accompanied by the intensity with which the Swedes instrumentally interpret the dramatic emotions that the exiled protagonist must confront, and they do so with forcefulness and a highly polished and at times sophisticated musical richness.

Moments of piercing anger and helplessness are recurrent in the development of the album, as with "The Moor" and its passages of gravely guttural vocals and anguished riffs generated by the duo Mikael Akerfeldt / Peter Lindgren, tinged from the beginning by impeccable acoustic bridges, or with the determined "Godhead's Lament" and the devilish percussion of Martin López and its beautiful middle section followed by brutal metal riffs, contrasted with moments of melancholic hope, as with the sentimental and serene "Benighted", cleansed of impurities and distortions crowned by an elegant bluesy guitar solo by Akerfeldt, or the anaesthetised "Face of Melina", which towards its last stretch activates, adding to the plot a renewed energy and the illusion that maybe there can be a viable future for the couple.

And consistent with the dictates of death metal and similar obscurities, there is no happy ending. The bloody and powerful "Serenity Painted Death", one of the album's standout pieces, underpinned by Martin Mendez's bass, and the harrowing "White Cluster" and its impeccable instrumental construction, mark the deadly denouement of the characters, executed by the intolerance of a disturbingly oppressive system, and whose solace is to be found in the afterlife as the story's concluding notes suggest.

"Still Life" is a sign of the maturity that Opeth had reached at that point, and a leap in quality both compositionally and instrumentally, making them one of the most representative bands of the most extreme side of the progressive universe.

Excellent.

4/4,5 stars

Still Life, Blackwater Park, Ghost Reveries, the 3 albums that I always see many have one of them as their favorite, I met Opeth this year, dazzled and in love with the heavy and and beautiful sound, and then I started listening to the albums, I remember that when I finished listening to My Arms Your Hearse (my favorite album) I went straight to Still Life and I thought... strange, I mean... it was good but... something was missing... and that something took a while to appear, I went listening to Blackwater Park, I loved it, Ghost Reveries, I loved it, Orchid, I loved it, and then, in the end, the last album left to finally finish listening to the heavy ones, it was Still Life, and I've already tried to give it a chance a few times , but there was always something missing, but it grew on me, and after the last time I heard it, it happened, and nowadays Still Life is one of my favorite albums alongside My Arms Your Hearse and Blackwater Park, Still Life took time and mental effort to be able to appreciate it, its sound is quite complex and difficult to digest, and as it is one of Opeth's most popular albums, it was a shock, but it was all worth it, to talk about Still Life, first, its concept, is a concept album that revolves around the story of an unknown man, who was banished from his village because of his faith and who consequently returns to it because of his beloved, Melinda, the theme of the album ends up being loving and tragic, remembering me Romeo & Juliet and then, the music... god... THE MUSIC, every song here, is incredible, absolutely incredible, with complex structures, beautiful acoustics, heavy riffs, with a mix of death metal and progressive rock it's natural and well done, giving a sound that is unique and shows a lot of maturity, the sense of journey I had with this album was really cool as I listened to it more often, always noticing some part I had never heard before, be it the initial jazz section of ''The Moor'' which is one of the most powerful album starts I've ever heard or the country pop section of ''Godhead's Lament'' is so subtle, but once you notice it, it's so interesting that it ends up being an aspect that I really like about this album, the more you listen, the more you understand the album and it becomes like ''Wow, I didn't notice that before'', the without death vocals ''Benighted'' and ''Face of Melinda'' the melodic ''Moonlapse Vertigo'' the overwhelming ''Serenity Painted Death'' and the sensational ''White Cluster'', all the songs on this album are of the highest level, none are weak, and it ends up being difficult to say which one I prefer, most likely you won't like it at first, that's what happened to me and many people had a case similar, but anyway, listen, this album is phenomenal, it may not even be my favorite album, but Still Life is one of the greatest masterpieces ever released by Opeth, tragic, heavy and beautiful.