avelanchefan
06-04-2008, 02:48 AM
Sweden's most popular Progressive death metal Group has released their ninth album. And incredibly I have to say their maturest CD to date.
Watershed starts off with a 3 minute heart breaking song called Coil. All acoustic Coil begins with Mikael Akerfeldt singing about a breakup, in the middle of the song folk singer Nathalie Lorichs starts singing back to Mikael about their doomed relationship. Hauntingly beautiful is all that I can say about it.
Coil leads into Heir Apparent which has to be Opeth's most heavy song to date. Huge crushing guitar riffs, and Akerfeldt's guttering growls make this song one of the most brutal metal songs I have ever heard. This is the only song on the whole CD that uses death growls throughout the entire song.
The Lotus Eater is the third song, that starts off with this medieval humming and then breaks into Blast Beats with clean vocals being sung over it. At first I was like WTF? Blast Beats over clean vocals? But surprisingly it works, the blast beats then go immediatly into a 200+ beat double kick bass with a short span of deathly growls. This repeats several times throughout the song, but the clean vocals heavily outweigh the growls.
The fourth song Burden in a bluesy 70's ballad that is actually very good, what is weird is how the song ends, with Akerfeldt playing the outro in a acoustic setting while someone is manually detuning the guitar, it works in a odd sort of way, but I have never heard something quite like that.
The detuning leads into Porcelain Heart. PH start off with some huge evil guitar riffs with oboes playing along with it. Again progressive in nature, I think an odd choice, but it works so well. The crunching guitars soon lead into acoustic parts with Mikael singing. This leads back into the main riff, and it goes like that through the whole song. A very nice rollercoaster ride.
Hessian Peel to me is the strangest song to me. It consists of an opening repeating bass note and a acoustic guitar playing along side it. It then start in with some nice lean vocals, and then the song nearly stops with some backward lyrics about 2 minutes into the song. Creepy is the only way to describe it. The singing picks back up and the song slows down again to just a piano playing. The swedes pick it up again abruptly into a death metal head banging song for the final 6 minutes. At first listen this song bored me, but I now find it to be an amazing song.
Hex Omega finishes off the CD with a huge bang. Sticking to the formula throughout the CD, you basically get huge bone crushing riffs, and then the song slows down a bit for Mikael to lay down his incredible vocals. It's the ending/outro of this song that leaves you wanting more. And I think that was the effect they were going for. By far Hex Omega is my favorite song.
Opeth also has the SE edition that comes with a DVD 5.1 mix, and the making of the album documentry. Plus 3 bonus Songs. I have yet to hear or see the DVD yet.
If Opeth has scared you off in the past because of the Death Growls have no worries. Only Heir Apparent uses them exclusively, while The Lotus Eater, and Hessian Peel uses the growls maybe for 10-15% of the song. Cookie Monster has been toned down. This CD is a solid 9/10.
Watershed starts off with a 3 minute heart breaking song called Coil. All acoustic Coil begins with Mikael Akerfeldt singing about a breakup, in the middle of the song folk singer Nathalie Lorichs starts singing back to Mikael about their doomed relationship. Hauntingly beautiful is all that I can say about it.
Coil leads into Heir Apparent which has to be Opeth's most heavy song to date. Huge crushing guitar riffs, and Akerfeldt's guttering growls make this song one of the most brutal metal songs I have ever heard. This is the only song on the whole CD that uses death growls throughout the entire song.
The Lotus Eater is the third song, that starts off with this medieval humming and then breaks into Blast Beats with clean vocals being sung over it. At first I was like WTF? Blast Beats over clean vocals? But surprisingly it works, the blast beats then go immediatly into a 200+ beat double kick bass with a short span of deathly growls. This repeats several times throughout the song, but the clean vocals heavily outweigh the growls.
The fourth song Burden in a bluesy 70's ballad that is actually very good, what is weird is how the song ends, with Akerfeldt playing the outro in a acoustic setting while someone is manually detuning the guitar, it works in a odd sort of way, but I have never heard something quite like that.
The detuning leads into Porcelain Heart. PH start off with some huge evil guitar riffs with oboes playing along with it. Again progressive in nature, I think an odd choice, but it works so well. The crunching guitars soon lead into acoustic parts with Mikael singing. This leads back into the main riff, and it goes like that through the whole song. A very nice rollercoaster ride.
Hessian Peel to me is the strangest song to me. It consists of an opening repeating bass note and a acoustic guitar playing along side it. It then start in with some nice lean vocals, and then the song nearly stops with some backward lyrics about 2 minutes into the song. Creepy is the only way to describe it. The singing picks back up and the song slows down again to just a piano playing. The swedes pick it up again abruptly into a death metal head banging song for the final 6 minutes. At first listen this song bored me, but I now find it to be an amazing song.
Hex Omega finishes off the CD with a huge bang. Sticking to the formula throughout the CD, you basically get huge bone crushing riffs, and then the song slows down a bit for Mikael to lay down his incredible vocals. It's the ending/outro of this song that leaves you wanting more. And I think that was the effect they were going for. By far Hex Omega is my favorite song.
Opeth also has the SE edition that comes with a DVD 5.1 mix, and the making of the album documentry. Plus 3 bonus Songs. I have yet to hear or see the DVD yet.
If Opeth has scared you off in the past because of the Death Growls have no worries. Only Heir Apparent uses them exclusively, while The Lotus Eater, and Hessian Peel uses the growls maybe for 10-15% of the song. Cookie Monster has been toned down. This CD is a solid 9/10.