BLACKWATER PARK

Me too, I must add a four stars rating to what's one the finest Opeth record's ever. Blackwater Park is a concept about a park for leper people, in eight songs: the violent Leper Affinity, powerful Bleak, quiet Harvest, nostalgic Drapery Falls, sad Dirge For November, evil Funeral Portrait, instrumental Patterns In The Ivy and merely brutal Blackwater Park. No doubt this is extreme metal blending prog influences (jazzy chords, asymmetrical rhythms, ten minutes pieces). However, Opeth isn't a technical metal band as Meshuggah with impossible riffs or as Symphony X which plays lightning fast. Opeth's tortuous riffs are an element of their style but each part isn't so complicated: there are still a lot of four chords riffs, rhythmic linearity and a restraint of a single minor key. But whereas some bands like Iron Maiden are just using receipts of the genre with talent, Opeth has moreover the ability to make the mould softer by arranging uncountable surprises and bringing originality, especially a melodic finesse (chromatism, dissonances, unusual scales). Actually, Opeth's trademark may be in the balance between melody and the art of headbanging riff. Which is the most impressive in this album is the formal mastery. Each part has a reason to be because it brings something new and fits perfectly at the same time. From that point of view, Opeth reveals itself as brillant as the big names respected on this website. Yes, I mean it!