GHOST REVERIES

Ghost Reveries marks my third Opeth review and also my first five star review for the band. Ghost Reveries is just an album that goes hard from start to finish. In a world filled with cliche boring prog metal, Opeth is a band that has always kept their integrity creating truly heavy music and more importantly, creating whatever type of music they want to. The production is wonderful, even though Steven Wilson doesn't have a hand in this one, its clear a major influence was drawn from his production style and even his own music at times.

Most of my favorite Opeth songs happen to be their openers, Ghost of Perdition is no exception. This song is perfect and exemplifies my favorite quality of Opeths music: the contrast between heavy death growly sections and the sections with clean vocals and softer instrumentation. We also quickly see the mellotron put in to use which proves to be a very worthy addition to Opeths music throughout this album. I love how Ghost of Perdition just holds no punches and comes right out the gate swinging. This energy continues with the monstrous Baying of the Hounds. This one-two punch just comes at you and will cause uncontrollable headbanging for 20 minutes straight. Following that is Beneath the Mire with its dark marching mellotron led intro. The final minute of this song is really just so creative and menacing. Atonement is the first song that really gives you some breathing room with its very spacey verse and catchy hook. The real star of the show to me is the euphoric atmospheric outro truly unlike anything Opeth had ever done prior. The next behemoth of a song is Reverie/Harlequin Forest. Similarly to Ghost of Perdition, it comes right out the gate with its iconic intro: "into the trees." The proggy playout in the final couple minutes just blows my mind every time, another just extremely strong and powerful song. Hours of Wealth is a beautiful minimalist style track. I love the intimate feel of it towards the middle when its stripped down to just vocals and electric piano. The Grand Conjuration follows and is in my opinion, the heaviest most aggressive track. This song never lets up with its raw, brutal energy from start to finish. Isolation years is a soft emotional track that serves its purpose of letting you cool down after the insanity that you just experienced.

Ghost Reveries is the best Opeth album. Front to back its filled with strong tracks and it is an album without flaw. Unlike many albums of this length, this one holds my attention throughout its 66 minute run time.

I give Ghost Reveries a 10/10. 5 Stars.