WATERSHED

Quite unusual and experimental album by Opeth. From the very first song ,acoustic and melodic, with female vocals, you understand, that possibly you would not be attacked by death metal storm during all the album. And you are right. In fact all the album is combination of melodic softer mellow prog songs and death metal ones. This combination brings some positive balance to the sound of full work, but often looks too much calculated.

Whenever I believe, that not endless death metal drones are strongest Opeth side ( there are many death bands all around doing this job with bigger enthusiasm and almost religious repetitiveness), I think this album is showing Opeth progressive abilities even better than some previous albums.

For sure, this combination of hard/soft, light/dark, beautiful/ugly is not Opeth invention in such kind of music, but they are using it quite successfully on this album. Every listener will find enough to listen there, and no-one will be bored.

Strong 3,5 from me.