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Opeth - Heritage CD (album) cover

HERITAGE

Opeth

 

Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

3.81 | 1406 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Jake Kobrin
Prog Reviewer
3 stars 70/100 - Rounded to 3 stars.

Opeth can be regarded as a sort of niche band. Despite their (perhaps misplaced) label of 'death metal' they do not generally appeal to denizens of the corpse slashing and blood vomiting world in which death metal resides. Alternatively, despite their influences from progressive rock, they have not acquired much allegiance from the average cape-wearing, middle-aged progger, either. Instead they have carved out their own groove in the music scene, one in which people who are fans of the bombastic, technical flaunting of progressive rock, but also the hard driving pulse of extreme metal can gather and be both moved to tears and sent to verge of murder by the same band.

That was until now. With their latest offering, Heritage, Opeth have forsaken their signature 'heavy - soft - soft - heavy' template with an experimental album that is difficult to classify. Gone are the lion roars and double bass pounding of old, and what now sits in their place is... well... hard to put a finger on. As a journalist I'd like to be the first to introduce new and ridiculous labels to this album such as 'post-ghost-wave' or 'blackened-folk-prog.' To forsake your confusion, and to name adjectives that may actually resonate with readers, however, one could perhaps call this album 'progressive rock,' 'experimental,' 'folk,' etc. From the album cover alone, it shouldn't be very difficult to determine that Opeth were aiming for the kind of album that you'd find for about $2 at your local record store, but could later sell on eBay for a hefty profit. This album reeks of feigned obscurity, as if Mikael Akerfeldt wanted to craft an artwork that pays tribute to all of the weird albums that he's assembled in his record collection and enjoys teasing his friends about because they've never heard of them.

This is actually Opeth's second time recording an album devoid of metal elements and growling vocals, the first being their 2003 album Damnation. As opposed to Damnation, which was very soft, somber, and beautiful, however, Heritage is a much harder hitting artwork. Opeth have perhaps strayed into hard rock territory in the past (such as Watershed's Porcelain Heart) but it has never been such a central element of their sound until now. Some parts of the album are positively heavy, but never in a way that is overtly metallic. Of course there are some of Opeth's trademark finger-style acoustic passages, but much less, surprisingly, than what we've heard on their past records. One of the problems with this album, though, and what makes it so difficult to describe, is that there really isn't a staple sound. It's not a hard rock album, it's not a prog album, it's not a folk album, and it's not a metal album. Instead, it's a dizzying array of scattered eclecticity, which leaves the listener feeling tired and confused by the time it's over.

The production on this album was obviously aimed towards being 'vintage.' For whatever reason, they wanted to make this album sound like it was produced without any of the modern luxuries that are available in sound engineering but yet actually produced it with those tools. The result is ineffective, in my opinion. Some modern bands have been able to successfully emulate a vintage sound on their albums (Astra's The Weirding is a prime example) but Heritage comes off as sounding muddy, congealed, and, ultimately, cheap. It's dreadfully apparent that the band was trying to make it sound like they used vintage recording techniques, as opposed to actually using those techniques. That said, I have a soft spot for vintage keyboards and this album is chock full of Mellotron, Rhodes, and totally bad ass Hammond organ sounds (which are actually all real - no virtual instruments!) The drum kit that Martin 'Axe' Axenrot dragged out for this album sounds delightfully fat and vintage, as well.

There are virtues to listening to this album, certainly. The musicianship is as impeccable as anything else this band has released. Martin Mendez's bass playing is especially impressive, and Axe's drumming is much improved over his last attempt. Like Opeth's last two records, the keyboards are again a very dominant aspect of the music, and I can't help but think about how much I will miss Per Wiberg's playing while I listen to this album. Furthermore, there are some legitimately beautiful moments on this album, moments that made me yearn to hear more like them, and for them to exist for longer than the brief moments that they existed for.

The musicianship is where the virtues end, however. The songwriting on this album is for the most part, crudely underdeveloped. Every one of the songs on the album has shining moments but when regarded as a full song, or as an entire album, it's a mess. Any moments of gold that the band may have landed upon are immediately vanquished by the next random and unrelated passage that has been tacked next to it for whatever illogical reason. This may have been the case with all Opeth's albums, but for some reason it worked. Perhaps it was the melding of extremes that this album is lacking that leaves the weakness of the songwriting so sorely exposed? As the last track comes to a close, what the listener is left with are a bunch of scattered moments amidst a sea of wankery and weirdness...

' And Opeth loves to flaunt their irregularities. The melodic structure of this album is, vaguely stated, unkosher. Mikael lives to write songs that utilize weird dis-harmonic guitar riffs and are basically devoid of any key or modality. Such music has been successful in the past, but by composers that were already thoroughly versed in 'standard' music theory before they decided to venture into uncharted territory and break the rules. Mikael Akerfeldt is completely unaware that these rules even exist, and most of his attempts at the avant-garde sound simply 'weird' and 'unpleasant'... and not in a good way. (Bartok, anyone?)

The vocals are the worst that Mikael Akerfeldt has ever recorded, and the lyrics are just as bad. Whereas in the past Akerfeldt was quite at home with a gentle, warm, and sort of Greg Lake style medieval crooning, he is entirely out of his comfort zone throughout Heritage. He attempted a kind of hard rock and belting singing style, occasionally aiming for his falsetto, but never actually on pitch. The vocals gyrate in a manner that is most bizarre. Why he could not simply choose a note and sing it, and had to instead warble over every tone that surrounds it, is completely beyond me. Some of the lyrics caused me to literally cringe. I shutter to recall the almost ICP-esque stanza 'Feel the pain | In your brain | insane.' Maybe his 4 year old daughter wrote that one?

In general, though, I think this album is pretty decent. It's listenable, interesting, and, however disorganized, actually has some brilliant material on it. I hope that Opeth continue with this new style, and perfect it. For the sake of the band's future, I also hope that Mikael Akerfeldt finds the writing partner that he so desperately needs, or that at least some of the band members will muster the courage to tell him 'Dude that part was sh!t, let's cut that.' I feel surprisingly apathetic to dish out such a scathing review of a band I once loved more than any other in music... Perhaps I already said my farewell years ago, like an elderly relative who's brain has already withered away in the wake of Alzheimer's but has yet to actually meet the grave? Apathy or something more predetermined, I'll miss Opeth and the music I once loved so dearly.

Highlights: I Feel the Dark, Haxprocess, Marrow of the Earth

Lowdarks: Famine, Nepenthe

Jake Kobrin | 3/5 |

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