Opeth - 2001 - Blackwater Park [TQMP]

____________________________________________________________________________ | | | Opeth - 2001 - Blackwater Park |:: | |:: | Ripped w/EAC v1.0b2 (Secure) :: Encoded w/FLAC v1.2.1 -8 |:: |____________________________________________________________________________|:: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: +--------------+ +------+ Pack / Files +--------------------------------------------------------+ | +--------------+ | | No. of Files / Size _____ 22 files / 486.84MB (510,488,231 bytes) | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------+ +------+ Audio Source +--------------------------------------------------------+ | +--------------+ | | Type / Quantity _________ CD (Compact Disc) (* 1) | | Date Released ___________ 27th of February, 2001 | | Genre(s) ________________ Metal | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------+ +------+ Review +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | +--------+ | | After the release of "Still Life" in 1998, Opeth went into the studio to | | record the latest step in their musical evolution. Their career had | | taken them through many of the shapes of modern black metal up to this | | point. Their albums "Orchid" and "Morningrise" proved that they had | | mastered the art of melodic death metal, and from that point the band | | decided to go in a different direction with "My Arms, Your Hearse." Some | | fans, however, regarding the direction taken on "Morningrise" to be | | excellent, balked at the decidedly more dissonant, heavier tone of the | | new album. Thus, on "Still Life," Opeth married the progressive | | influences and the heavy influences in the way that "Blackwater Park" | | displays, with equal parts light and heavy, in addition to a whole lot | | more reverb and thickness, courtesy of new producer and Akerfeldt | | confidant Steven Wilson, of the British prog band Porcupine Tree. | | | | "Blackwater Park" is, as said above, mostly a refinement on the sound of | | "Still Life," with little new innovation or changes in direction. There | | are full-blast metal moments, moments of breathtaking beauty, and | | lighter, acoustic sections layered with Akerfeldt's ever-improving clean | | vocals: in short, everything one can currently expect from Opeth. In | | this case, this "refinement" proved so successful that it is thus far | | Opeth's highest-selling album, selling hundreds of thousands of copies | | in the States. Here's the album track by track. | | | | The Leper Affinity | | "Blackwater Park" was my first Opeth album. I didn't know precisely what | | to expect. I had heard excellent things about them and I was, believe it | | or not, apprehensive. Would I like a marriage of a genre I despise(death | | metal) with a genre that I love(progressive rock)? With that attitude in | | mind, the opening to this song was terrifying. Just terrifying. A | | discordant piano chord fades slowly in, louder and louder, until it's | | really loud and you know the explosion is coming any moment, but it | | doesn't come it doesn't come and then it does, and the explosion is | | greater than you imagined. The riffs are fast, dissonant, and evil, and | | the aura this music gives off is of a castle where nothing except the | | most perverted rituals are performed. This barrage continues with | | Akerfeldt's reverbed, awesome death growls and never lets up. The | | assault gives way to the most perfect guitar solo I've heard Opeth | | perform(and I have nearly their entire discography), and then breaks | | through to one of their famed harmony breaks, with lead guitars singing | | over rubble-pounding chords. Sound melodramatic? This is simply the way | | my emotions were being manipulated on my first listen. It's not | | melodramatic: this was how Opeth's sound and fury being unleashed on a | | completely new listener felt. The acoustic sections and clean singing | | that follow are just gorgeous, and the song ends with a great prog-rock | | riff and an eerie, self-contained piano section. This was my first taste | | of Opeth, and I already knew I loved them. | | | | Bleak | | Surpassed only by "Black Rose Immortal" and closely followed by "The | | Moor," this song is my favorite Opeth song. It's groove is considerably | | slower and, if possible, even more eerie than the previous tune, and a | | highlight is the echoing E-bow lead floating above the dry-sounding | | acoustics and the distorted guitars. The rest of the song begins to | | follow a fairly standard structure until Akerfeldt's clean vocals make a | | return with some of the best singing of his career. It slowly quiets | | down until we reach an almost bluesy acoustic section, and I personally | | was amazed at how WELL the death metal section flowed into this part. It | | left me feeling like, "How did I get from there to HERE?" What follows | | is a great riff with a heavily distorted lead that itself goes back to | | the most gorgeous, instrumentally dense section Opeth ever put to tape. | | Listen to this with headphones and hear everything that's going on. It's | | breathtaking. The song ends with repeats from earlier and then the sound | | of a tape breaking. Awesome. | | | | Harvest | | In the tradition of "Benighted," we have a nearly all-acoustic song | | here, with no metal sections. My opinion is mixed. It's certainly very | | pretty, but since I wasn't used to Opeth's habitual use of dissonant | | chords in their acoustic sections, the middle section threw me for a | | while. I eventually got used to it, though, and realized that for Opeth, | | writing something standardly melodic would have been a cop-out. This | | isn't the best, but it's still very high-quality. | | | | The Drapery Falls | | Okay, now, this song is interesting. It seems to be more "mood music" | | than anything else Opeth has made. The important thing, though, is that | | this song is next to impossible to categorize. It's so original and | | unique-sounding, combining so many various elements of a lot of | | different types of music, that I can't believe that four guys just came | | up with this stuff in a couple of weeks. The intro is really the prime | | example of that. Where, in any band anywhere, have you heard an intro | | so...impossible to pin down? The sections that follow are totally cool, | | with melancholy acoustic while(It's that E-Bow Again!) the slide guitars | | swim around the sea of reverb above them. The metal sections are fairly | | standard and to be honest, go on for way too long, but the short | | acoustic bits resolve back to the intro in a nice way. | | | | Dirge for November | | This song is easily the most forgettable one on here. That said, the | | beginning and ending to this one are just great. The reverb-laden "wall | | of sound" breaks down to great effect with Mikael just sings and plays | | his guitar for a few seconds, and his voice isn't even tuned properly, | | which adds an interesting contrast. There's more beautiful music, but | | it's followed by music that I just can't get into. The metal music | | doesn't make me bang my head, it just makes me scratch it. This is | | followed by a way-too-long, but nice, clean section with eerie E-bow | | harmonies lurking in the mix. The weakest link in the album, but not | | THAT bad. | | | | The Funeral Portrait | | The 12-string that opens this sounds very good, but the riffs that | | follow almost sound like ones lifted from the middle of Dream Theater's | | "Another Day!" ("Duuh-duh-duh-duh-da-dat-daa-da-da-dum..) Still, it's | | very cool. The acoustic sections are real evil on this, helped out by | | Lopez's nice fills. The long, multiple guitar solos that close the song | | are also pretty nice, as are the harmony vocals. A solid Opeth song. | | | | Patterns in the Ivy | | An instrumental acoustic/piano duet. This is a short, nice interlude | | piece. I don't really have much to say, 'cause it's only a minute long. | | | | Blackwater Park | | This song is chock full of the heaviest, most evil riffs Opeth ever | | recorded. The song also reverses the structure of "The Leper Affinity" | | by placing it's mellow interlude right near the beginning, which, unlike | | other such interludes, is not hampered by its length. Then, the metal | | assault which follows does not let up for a single moment for the rest | | of the song. Particularly awesome is Akerfeldt's "death-metal harmony" | | in which two screams of different levels of bowel-churning-ness are | | combined to make the most evil metal blast on the entire album. You must | | listen to this. It's amazing. | | | | FINAL THOUGHTS: | | I know this review was long and a lot to digest, but so is the album. It | | requires patience, and a keen musical ear: there's really no point in | | listening to Opeth if you're not going to really listen to them. The | | production is awesome, being really, really dense and bone-dry at the | | same time. It truly adds to the relentlessly bleak mood of the CD. The | | deluxe import has two bonus tracks, "Still Day Beneath the Sun," an | | acoustic number that is quite nice, and "Patterns in the Ivy II" a rare | | "sequel song" that is very beautiful, and which is quite worthy of the | | title. The harmony solo at the end is particularly beautiful: I go out | | for walks at night listening to this and just close my eyes, thinking | | about stuff. All true lovers of rock music will like this CD. It is | | already a classic within the metal community and could easily turn into | | one of the most influential rock albums of any genre of the early part | | of the 21st century. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------+ +------+ Track List +----------------------------------------------------------+ | +------------+ | | No. | Title | Duration | | ----+--------------------------------------------------------+---------- | | 001 | The Leper Affinity ................................... | 00h10m23s | | 002 | Bleak ................................................ | 00h09m16s | | 003 | Harvest .............................................. | 00h06m01s | | 004 | The Drapery Falls .................................... | 00h10m54s | | 005 | Dirge for November ................................... | 00h07m54s | | 006 | The Funeral Portrait ................................. | 00h08m45s | | 007 | Patterns In the Ivy .................................. | 00h01m52s | | 008 | Blackwater Park ...................................... | 00h12m08s | | ----+--------------------------------------------------------+---------- | | | | Total Length ____________ 01h07m13s | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------+ +------+ Audio Rip +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | +-----------+ | | Ripped with _____________ EAC v1.0b2 [http://www.exactaudiocopy.de] | | Encoded with ____________ FLAC v1.2.1 [http://flac.sourceforge.net] | | Encoding Stats __________ 1411kbps / 44.1kHz / CBR / 16-bit / Stereo | | Tag(s) __________________ Vorbis | | Includes Artwork? _______ Yes | | Includes Rip .LOG? ______ Yes | | Includes Rip .CUE? ______ Yes | | Includes Playlist? ______ Yes | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ rainfo v0.2 [2011/06/27 @ 21:22:11]

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