GHOST REVERIES

In critical circles, it is usually Blackwater Park that is praised as the group's greatest work. But, as far as I can tell, this is simply because Blackwater Park was Opeth's first record to make any headway in the US market. For many critics, this was their first Opeth record and, as a result, the one that most impacted them.

Predictably, usually the death metal die-hards are likely to consider My Arms, Your Hearse as Opeth's greatest while fans of prog rock with no particular affection for metal will gravitate towards one of their later releases. Even long-time fans of the group who appreciate the fact that Opeth's genius lies in a unique synthesis of styles tend to prefer Still Life as the group's greatest record. This is perfectly reasonable when you consider that it is on Still Life, not Blackwater Park, where the group makes their first quantum leap in coherent but stylistically varied songwriting.

But despite all this, I still consider Ghost Reveries to be Opeth's greatest album because it so perfectly blends the band's signature riff heavy and dissonant death metal with emotive folk and psychedelic prog rock. Specifically, the transitions between stylistically contrasted passages are no longer just pasted together creating jarring breaks in the music. Rather, the passages are threaded together by well executed transitions. It is also the first record in which the prog and pyschedelic components are given as much weight as the death metal making it their most balanced record both up to that point and since. Ghost Reveries was peak Opeth and no album before or since has managed to duplicate what it accomplished.