BLACKWATER PARK

Ok, a new genre for me and a band with beautiful covers and an interesting approach. This is Blackwater Park from 2001 with the Swedish metal band Opeth. It's Opeth's fifth studio record(of ten) and shows a grey landskape with shadow figures in the background. It both impressed and in the end made me little confused.

What I like is their composite of very heavy metal and acoustic gitarr, piano and the strong melodies they use. Though for me it's too much of the heaviness. It creves something to get motivation to listen to everything. But I prefer actually the heavy parts before the weak parts where the singer sings suppressed like in a quiet megaphone or a walkie talkie. I like the most melodic parts where the guitar plays it's part but I think I miss keyboard or more piano even in the heavy parts.

Blackwater Park features Mikael Åkerfeldt (Vocals, guitar), Peter Lindgren(guitars), Martin Lopez(drums), Martin Mendez(bass) and Steven Wilson(voice, guitar, piano). It could be Wilson's voice I don't like!

The best songs here are: "The drapery dalls" with a symphonic melody and both heavy and mild passages, "The funeral portrait" with a great guitar solo and a beautiful melody in the end. The first song "The Leper Affinity" also shows it's great mixture. Especially a mild guitar round in the end is lovely. I actually think every track has qualities and could give a flavor of Opeth. Even if this doesn't turn me on I will listen to this band again because new music can be hard to embrace.