Title: Blackwater Park
Artiste: Opeth
Genre: Progressive Metal
Familiarity: I've heard two albums, both of which I believe are more towards the progressive metal, even progressive rock direction the band has taken lately rather than the older, death metal style they became known for.
1. The leper affinity: A ten-minute opener is pushing it a little but we'll see. The vocal is certainly more death metal than I had expected, but hey, I'm used to that by now. Whereas before I used to turn off an album if I heard this kind of vocal, now I just embrace it, occasionally laugh at it. (See my review of Hate's
Crusade: Zero in Metal Month III) This song has some elements of prog metal in it though, with quieter, almost reflective passages, and the ten minutes goes in much faster than I had expected. Nice piano ending.
2. Bleak: Another ten-minuter? Alright, nine, but still... like the Arabic flavour to the guitar riff, also like the way the vocal switches from death growls to clean vocals. Pretty decent.
3. Harvest: Nice acoustic guitar running this, the vocal seems to be clean all the way through
4. The drapery falls: Good track; the death vocals are back and it's another ten-minute behemoth that goes by quickly enough. Kind of not really feeling it like I did with the other two Opeths I listened to though.
5. Dirge for November:It'll be a surprise to precisely no-one that I prefer the more laidback, acoustic pieces here, the times when Opeth lean more in a prog rock and away from any sort of metal direction. This is one such. Well, maybe not quite: started off that way. I still like it better than most of what has gone before, despite the sudden upsurge and the death vocals.
6. The funeral portrait: Back to a hard rocker with death vocals. Nice vocal harmonies, but I'm not that interested really.
7. Patterns in the sky: Really nice instrumental, too short though.
8. Blackwater Park: And a twelve-minute track to close! Like the instrumental section in the middle, other than that it kind of doesn't do an awful lot for me.
End result: If I hadn't already heard “new” Opeth (mostly hated by their old fans) I might have thought more of this, but now that I've seen what they can do this just seems a little average and boring to me. I'm aware it's considered one of their greater albums, but then, that should really never figure into my decision, should it? And it doesn't.
So, Love or Hate? Probably a
Like rather than an actual Love.