GHOST REVERIES

Recognised as Opeth's best album by some, a great effort by most, Ghost Reveries is arguably the band's proggiest effort to date. Personally, I don't think it quite touches the standard of the classics Still Life, MAYH, Morningrise and Blackwater Park, but it is pretty good to say the least and entertaining throughout. The only thing that lets it down however are three tracks which I don't find are at the standard of the rest: these three tracks are Baying of the Hounds, Atonement and Isolation Years. The rest of them though are quite brilliant.

Of the good tracks, which are what I'm about to focus on, I would say that Ghost of Perdition and The Grand Conjuration are my favourites, for the simple reason that they are the most interesting to me. Ghost of Perdition is quite possibly one of Opeth's best songs, and is the standout track of the album. It goes through many phases of which include bonecrunching riffs, breathtaking drumming from Martin Lopez, a beautiful quiet section towards the middle, complex songwriting, Mikael Akefeldt's deepest growling and overall a perfect contrast of brutality and melody. The Grand Conjuration is a harder rocker and is great to play loud. Only one word can describe this piece: brutal. All the way through almost, and it is pretty damn strange at best. My favourite part of this song is the break after the quite section with the guitar fading into an aggressive riff. This also contains one of Akefeldt's fastest guitar solos and is fantastic to listen to all the way through if you love prog metal like myself.

The remaining standout tracks are not too shoddy themselves. Beneath the Mire introduces us to a middle-eastern feel with a kickass, yet simplistic, drum beat. This is the proggiest effort off the album by a narrow margin, and includes a very symphonic middle section. Reverie/Harlequin Forest is a brilliant song which is divided into two parts. The first is a standard hard rocker with majoritively clean vocals and some lyrics that deserve a mention. The second has a rather obvious Pink Floyd touch to it and a superb ending that sound reminiscently, as mentioned before, of Meshuggah with the yes, it is in 4/4, but you just try and keep in time with it approach that was seen before in the ending of Deliverance. Hours of Wealth is a beautiful ballad which is pure melody. Tasteful is the perfect word to describe this effort, and even though it is one of the only Opeth songs that lacks drums, it is by no means boring. The middle build up is simply brilliant and the finale guitar solo rises the hairs on the back of my neck.

The other three tracks that i don't care much for are not by no means poor. I simply just don't like them. No use asking me to explain myself, but they just don't float my boat. End of story.

Overall an excellent album. However, because they don't touch the standard of the classics, I am forced to give it a ranking lower than 4 stars. But it is too good for 2 stars by a mile. So 3 stars it is, i think that is justice in my eyes. If it were a 10 star rating system i would give it 7, but unfortunately it isn't. Good, but non-essential.

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