HERITAGE

I don't think Heritage is a bad album, but it is perhaps a confused one at times. Opeth took a very bold move on this record fully committing to a sort of folky prog rock sound after their final progressive death metal album Watershed. The result is a bit mixed, but I very much respect their artistic integrity. With Heritage it's all about the atmosphere, many of the songs have very quiet/minimalist sections that pay off with darker heavier riffs. The keys and acoustic guitars on this album are wonderful and are really create the "sound" of this album. On top of this, the drumming is wonderful, its very light and jazzy. In general, I think the drums are much more developed and interesting then they were on watershed (and I think they get even better on the next album).

The album starts and ends with these two atmospheric acoustic tracks. I'm really not a fan of bands doing this as I think it tends to add nothing to the album. I always prefer when the opening song just starts with this atmospheric buildup and pays off with an actual song (The Moor for example). The real album starts with the devils orchard which I think is a very strong track with some great riffs and several really nice sections. The middle section exemplifies these awesome quiet parts with very subtle instrumentation. The next track is my favorite on the album: I Feel the Dark. The song builds this fantastic atmosphere for the first few minutes which is rewarded with this nasty dark, heavy, doomy mellotron/guitar riff about halfway through which continues to develop into a somewhat chaotic jam. The next track is the first misstep in my opinion. "Slither" is a tribute to Dio who had recently passed away and besides the ending, it's a pretty straightforward hard rock song that ultimately feels out of place after the wonderfully complex tracks that proceed it. Besides feeling out of place, I just don't think its a very strong song. It's redeemed in the next track "Nepenthe" which is also a favorite of mine. The first minutes are very subtle and jazzy, this really cool electric piano riff starts to fade in and it segues us into a really great full band jam and guitar solo. The song kinda winds down into this really neat ethereal sounding mellotron ending. Haxprocess is another favorite, it's a very delicate song with soft, lush instrumentation that develops into a really strong acoustic/mellotron song. This is another song that doesn't really have a big ending but rather just kinda fizzles out. That may be offputting to some, but it doesn't bother me personally. After this song, the album kinda dips in my opinion. Famine is just a bit of a confused song and kind of has too much going on at times. The intro starts to develop into this thing with tribal sounding percussion, but it just ends up abruptly stopping and not going anywhere as this minimalist verse takes over. This sort of happens again with this verse as it kind of just stops as a somewhat awkward guitar riff fades in. This issue is repeated and in turn the song feels very touch-and-go. The song climaxs with the doomy guitar riff overlayed with flute playing, if I'm being honest though, I think they miss the mark here in what could have been a really great section. I think if the flute was turned up in the mix and the playing was a little more interesting they would have something really cool here. The next track "The Lines in My Hand" has some great bass and drum work, but overall I think it's a sort of insignificant song on the album. It's another more straightforward rock song like "Slither." The last main song besides the aforementioned closer is "Folklore" and I know its actually a favorite of many, however, I cant say it is for me. The song has really some of Opeths worst lyrics: "Feel the Pain, In Your Brain, Insane." I know they're capable of better, the whole song has these elementary level rhymes and it feels rushed on that front. My biggest gripe with this song is that it just feels like they took two songs and merged them together. The first half is alright, kind of more of the same that we've seen throughout the album, the last couple minutes are this more epic closing "Wheels of Confusion" style jam that just doesn't hit in the context of where it is. It feels like it's missing the proper buildup and I feel like it could've been very effective if it had any relation the the rest of the song.

Overall, there is a lot of very strong material on Heritage and it is a very unique album in the Opeth discography. When it hits it hits, but sometimes it swings and misses. The next album "Pale Communion" is a much more strong and successful experiment in this style.