By the POLL I See In Others: the Opeth album poll

i haven't listened to any of these records in years but i think i would've gone for my arms your hearse or still life back when

seems unfair in a way to put the cookie monster vocal albums against the others, they are so different. I'd vote blackwater and damnation. but I'll just vote damnation. it was the first album of their I ever heard and as much as I like the albums since I don't feel they've bettered it.

This is a really, really hard decision, as Opeth has evolved so much, and there's nothing by them I dislike. Blackwater Park was a real apex of that early style, I love My Arms, Your Hearse and Still Life, but damn I do love their progressive rock output as of late. I think I'll actually vote Pale Communion.

Their retro-prog albums leave me distinctly unmoved, though I recognise that Pale Communion is a bit stronger than Heritage.

They've always been one of those bands that are great, even brilliant at times but are hampered a bit by muddled and flabby writing. Ghost Reveries was the first one I got so I'll always have a soft spot for it but for me Blackwater Park is their best, and probably their most cohesive imo.

pound for pound, it's gotta be Still Life. there are some really jawdropping moments on that one.

best song is possibly Bleak from BWP.

Ehhhhh, I can never listen to them any more but all their stuff is quite good.

Watershed belongs in the discussion, is all I will say, although it perhaps isn't quite as mysterious and dark as BWP

also must pay dues to Ghost Reveries for featuring one of the greatest riffs in music. y'all know the one i'm talking about, right?

the entirety of The Baying Of The Hounds?

(their best song maybe)

heh. i was talking about the opening riff in The Grand Conjuration (which reappears with amplified returns towards the end of the song). the song you mentioned is also excellent though.

Fuck I'm going to have to listen to these tonight aren't I

Ghost Reveries is the one that I listen to all the way through the most, Blackwater Park has a few songs that top it though.

Never listened to the first couple, Damnation, or Watershed and I don't really feel I need to. They're a band I sort of feel I've got the point of now and I'm fine with just the records I have.

I'm listening to Ghost Reveries right now lol

This is gonna be a difficult vote - they're one of my favorite bands. I love Watershed because it's so weird; it's like they were shedding the skin of their Blackwater Park/Damnation/Deliverance/Ghost Reveries sound but weren't quite sure where they were going next. (I was editing Metal Edge when it came out, and Roadrunner flew me to Stockholm to hear it and interview the band.) I don't really love the early stuff. Pale Communion is great, Heritage has a couple of great songs but the two they saved as bonus tracks are better than some of the actual album cuts. Gotta give this some thought.

Blackwater park was a real gateway album for me into both metal and prog and I still like it a lot. 'Harvest' is still my favorite song they've done

Damnation is such a weird/compelling left turn, I like to think of it as goth Steely Dan

though I guess if anyone else agreed w/ that assessment it'd be the most popular album in ILM history

damnation is a nice record but nothing on it matches 'harvest' which was clearly the blueprint for it

always preferred this track to anything that ended up on Damnation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fo1HfBItEc

aight. I'll begin by saying I still don't understand the love Blackwater Park gets. to me, that was the beginning of a downslide. find much of the album to be bland and forgettable.

Orchid through MAYH are fantastic. Morningrise was the de facto classic amongst the prog cognoscenti, I love it but I think I like the immediacy of MAYH more. I will admit this is largely for sentimental reasons - I got it the summer before I went away to college, my final summer in my hometown with my friends, and played it a lot on a performance troupe trip up to NYC, and it stuck with me. but I also love the fuck out of "April Ethereal" and of course "Demon of the Fall".

"Still Life" was great - they learned that adding traditional songwriting tropes more frequently wasn't a bad thing. Love "Benighted", really the entire album has some great melodies and guitar work.

Damnation and Deliverance didn't grab me. Ghost Reveries, though, I felt was a great late-career move. felt like more of a 70's prog rock album than anything metal but the songwriting is just so good. Watershed I liked but felt like a step backwards.

Have yet to hear Heritage, but Pale Communion was a solid album.

right now I think it's between MAYH or Ghost Reveries, will think on it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

i am listening to every Opeth album in chronological order

it is absolutely striking how enormous the jump from the first 3 albums to Still Life is, it's like they went away and learnt how to write songs

I haven't listened to "Still Life" in a while, but it's sounding goooooooooooooood.

it's immense, and it's clear from the first couple of minutes just what is now in play

I used to not like Blackwater but I gave only a few listens back when it came out. I definitely enjoy it a lot more now

Still Life is the only one of their studio albums I don't own a physical CD of. I should rectify that one of these days, but mostly for completism's sake; I don't listen to it very often.

i remember paying extra cos it was an import at the local record store, only for the shit to get US distribution not long after.

the first one I bought was My Arms, Your Hearse

Learning that he is a Scott Walker fan (from that video where he goes record shopping) has given me a different perspective on the so-called prog ballads on the recent albums.

he is a Scott Walker fan

Always sad to find such chasms of taste in artists you admire.

Do you dislike Opeth ballads more, after learning that they might be influenced by an artist you dislike?

No, not at all. I don't dislike their ballads, for one thing, and I don't hear the influence of Walker at all.

I have come to love both Ghost Reveries and In Cauda Venenum. I've struggled to get excited about Watershed, Heritage, Pale Communion or Sorceress.

I've heard all those except Sorceress, and nothing earlier; and maybe my retro-prog judgement is impaired, but unlike a lot of listeners I don't hear a big difference in quality. Just a number of good songs on each and a number of less fully-digested compositional ideas.

I'm more or less in line with that; there are no Opeth stinkers, afaict, just different vibes, I guess. Definitely worth listening to the band's earlier stuff, especially when the metal started to make way for retro-prog, like on "Still Life," or "Blackwater Park" and "Deliverance"/"Damnation," the albums made with Steven Wilson.

THERE IS NO HELL! no, no no. the range of perfect guitar tones is a marvel. elements of "moon above, sun below" are 80s crimson, but with vocals less performatively zany than belew, giving way to serious epic zeppelin prog-blues, before iron maiden math moments that build to bridges of gentle giant harmonies: "voices of despair, a familiar friendship, society in your hair, what's the code of destruction?" dOPETHrone \m/