opeth C or D

yah it's awesome but dude you're sleeeeping on the second KD album, that was the stone classic imo, ___on limpid form is insanely good

stained glass ain't a bad place to start for the curious tho

opeth should release a 20-minute EP! actually all their albums should be shorter, then they'd be more approachable

i do think opeth need to do something drastically different with this next album. i mean all their albums are different from each other SOUNDWISE, but the basic approach towards songwriting, structures and dynamics has always been the same (MAYH and obviously damnation were a bit different though). i think their angle on progressive music has become a little narrow - things really don't need to be fleshed out for the sake of fleshing them out. and yes, they need to do something shorter. around 35 minutes would be perfect, provided there's not a wasted second of music.

maybe steven wilson will streamline them into a soft-prog outfit

lawlz

btw if yr reading steven yr a good dude rly and porcupine tree are sometimes very good indeed, also u have excellent taste

that vocal interplay between wilson and akerfeldt on bleak is the stuff of genius.

that vocal interplay between wilson and akerfeldt on bleak is the stuff of genius.

so awesome i had to post it twice. wtf

that vocal interplay between wilson and akerfeldt on bleak is the stuff of genius.

the STUFF

of GENIUS

should also mention while i'm on a roll that BWP is a brutal live track. i don't think they play it very often though.

OK fuck I stick Blackwater Park (live) on and the idiot crowd are CLAPPING their way through the REALLY CREEPY, MOVING, BEAUTIFUL FOLKY BIT, aaaaargh

― Just got offed, Friday, 4 January 2008 21:27 (3 years ago)

haaa

Still Life is the one I'll probably return to next, tbh

SL is the only album of theirs that i wouldn't change a second of (ok, maybe face of melinda drags slightly). but yeah, it's a really nicely paced album with some unstoppable highlights (the folky midsection on godhead's lament, that lofty drawn-out intro to moonlapse vertigo, the tension of white cluster etc. etc.)

I own several Opeth releases, saw them live on several ocassions and self-identify as a metalhead. But I have never been able to get into them at all. I used to think of this as a personal failing but now I blame them instead for boring me.

i'm quietly anticipating the next one. release date of september 20 apparently. meant to be a bit of a departure stylistically. could be pretty interesting.

new song starts just like "heart of the sunrise"

http://stereogum.com/766792/opeth-the-devils-orchard-stereogum-premiere/franchises/haunting-the-chapel/

not sure how i feel about the vocals. this worked on 'damnation,' but that was all mellow, folk-inflected stuff

I like the album a ton, his singing has never been stronger, plus it goes perfectly with the more progressive rock direction of the album.

On my second listen and I'm really loving it, can't wait to hear the whole album. This is hitting my prog-loving sweet spot right now.

almost tediously stop-start, but there's some great stuff going on in there somewhere. really nice guitar solo right at the end.

loving "nepenthe" and "haxprocess." i've been waiting for songs like this since 'damnation'

interesting move for them. didn't realize heritage would be a throwback record from hearing "the devil's orchard" but wow is it ever. good stuff though.

The more I hear about this album, the more excited I am. I mean, it pretty much makes 100% sense for them to just go ahead and do a full-on prog throwback album at this point.

yeah, it does make sense. the problem though is that sound-wise this album isn't too far removed from the mellower parts of the last couple of opeth records. so, it's not so much a progression or departure as a more detailed exploration of sounds they've touched on previously. stylistically, this album probably has more in common with watershed than damnation -- i think i was hoping these songs would have more precise structures or something. i'm not particularly enthused by the vocal lines here either, which are really sounding recycled and cursory by this point. still these are earlier days, and it could all yet grow on me...

the instrumentals that book-end the album are gorgeous, however.

Listening to the live CD attached to the new issue of Rock Hard magazine. Pretty great. I'm gonna go see them (for the first time since 2003 or so) when they play NYC later this month.

should I go see opeth and katatonia in October, or go see belew and levin touring with their respective bands and apparently playing all of Discipline? these are on the same night. it is my week of prog, kicking off with the Musical Box doing the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Ending with Portishead though so not really.

Thats a tough call, if it were my choice I'd probably go with the Belew and Levin thing, it seems less likely to happen again soon than another Opeth tour.

Anyway, I'm still not sure how I feel about the new album. I do love how full-on prog it is, but on the first two full listens I've found myself wishing for some more upbeat moments to spice things up a little. Its striking me all as a little too pretty and safe I guess, even if the musicianship is wonderful.

What a video:

http://www.pitchfork.com/news/44090-video-opeth-the-devils-orchard/

This is a real surprise, Opeth had never made good videos before.

it's a good album but it's also kind of dull, to me.

Show last night was excellent. The three acoustic songs mid-set ("Throat of Winter," "Credence" and "Patterns in the Ivy II") was received with a mix of bafflement and appreciation. What's really interesting is hearing them Heritage-ize their older songs. They're really working hard to put the new material into context of their whole history, and I think it's working.

I'm psyched to see them for the first time in a couple of weeks. Heritage is where I hoped they would go after the last record and I don't miss the death metal trappings at all. A beautiful, autumnal record hitting at a perfect time.

that is an amazing week of music akm. portishead has gotten pretty prog imho, at least third . . . and barlow's involvement in crippled black phoenix and beak

thanks for that video. that is awesome

Here's some video I shot of Opeth's NYC soundcheck last week...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcTQcKM6MqU

Seeing them for the first time tonight. Still psyched.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe65yrvlEDo

That Devil's Orchard video is sweet!

Saw them a few nights ago at Stubb's in Austin. It was a good time, though I personally could have done without the acoustic set and with a bit more hard rocking. Both Opeth and Katatonia have very congenial stage presences as far as metal acts go.

Only just caught up on Deliverance, pretty good! Might be tied with Ghost Reveries as my favourite.

A Fair Judgement is massive.

the new one sounds awesome, straight up complex and intricate, unabashedly progged out, way more what i was expecting from 'heritage', which i think half-stepped it a bit. just a few listens and already this is edging into motorpsycho 'death-defying unicorn' decade highlight territory

Ghost Reveries was the last one I loved, but i didn't hear Heritage.

New one's fantastic.

"goblin" lives up to such a tall name. the versatility of these guys is really kind of staggering

where are you hearing this? it's not out yet is it?

It's not out until August 26, but it leaked yesterday.

it is available. sound quality is no good though. this is gonna sound enormous legit

The problem is that Opeth are both brilliant and shit, usually in the same song, since Mikael Akerfelt's way of writing a prog 'epic' is to sling disparate and unconnected riffs/parts together until he has 10 minutes worth of music. Or at least that's what it sounds like to me a lot of the time.

I love a lot of prog but Heritage was not a good example, it was just bloated and disjointed in all the bad ways. I'll still give this new one a listen, but my hope aren't high.

lol my favourite opeth song is 'the baying of the hounds' but that's basically because of its 7 only vaguely connected parts about 5 or 6 are absolutely brilliant, their best strike-rate imo

Akerfelt's way of writing a prog 'epic' is to sling disparate and unconnected riffs/parts together until he has 10 minutes worth of music. Or at least that's what it sounds like to me a lot of the time.

to be fair, this is pretty much what constitutes 95% of current "prog"

depends what you mean by ""prog"", mayne

I'm not even sure I know what I mean by """prog""", I just know that digging into the current bands that get hyped in places like the progarchives, a huge percentage of the bands are really bad at composing "epics" for the very reasons you suggest. I was just trying to say it isn't a trap that only Akerfelt falls into. The good thing about him is that his highs are so fucking high that it covers for the lackluster bits, for the most part.

that's fair