Opeth: Watershed

avelanchefan

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.

fireshoes

I Opeth

avelanchefan

fireshoes wrote: »

I Opeth

Does that mean you love them or hate them?

Trust me guys and gals if you even remotely like progressive metal than this CD is for you. The 5.1 mix is just amazing!

AsSiMiLaTeD

Awesome, a new Opeth CD! They're one of my favorite groups. I really liked Ghost Reveries quite a bit, thought it was a good venture back to their stuff like Blackwater Park.

I can't wait to check this out, thanks for the post.

avelanchefan

Yes Ghost Reveries was amazing Polkmaniac. Watershed is a bit tamer, but I think it has a subtle darker tone to it than GR.

AsSiMiLaTeD

You're also a Dream Theater fan aren't you? Check this out:

Play the new Opeth CD, track 6. Skip to right around 2 minutes 17 seconds and listen through until about 4 mintues 17 seconds, pay attention to the changes, not the melody, strings, or voice.

Now grab Dream Theater's latest studio album Systematic Chaos (one of my favorites by the way). Skip to track 5 (repentance). Ship to 7 minutes 9 seconds, right after all the spoken regrets, and listen for a couple minutes, up through 8 minutes 11 seconds should be enough to give you an idea. You're listening for the progression here as well, but it's a lot easier to hear since the 'melody' is just basically the group singing through the changes in harmony.

Anything jump out at you? They're not identical, but they're very similar, the DT progression has a couple more measures through each time. The Opeth part is obviously based on and copied loosely from the DT part. That's not to say Opeth 'ripped' it from DT, groups use the same progressions all the time, this one just stands out a little more since it's a more memorable progression.

It's also not surprising since all those guys hang out together and they've toured together, for all we know Opeth created it in a rehearsal session or something and DT grabbed it from them - I just find that kind of stuff neat and like to share.

avelanchefan

Wow I love Hessian Peel, and have never noticed the similarites between the two. But I will be sure to listen to them both again. I find it funny though because Akerfeldt is actually in Repentance, he is the one speaking about how he screwed over his friend by not singing at his wedding. So Akerfeldt actually adding in some parts of that would not be that surprising. Also Mikael sang/talked his part in Repentence at the New York Dream Theater show a few weeks ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3VWf3yS020

Okay so enough about the similarities of the songs, what do you think of Watershed?

I missed the Dream Theater/Opeth tour due to them not coming to Arizona, I was bummed about it, but I saw DT last year in Phoenix, and the show was excellent as always. I know Opeth is doing their own headlining tour this fall, so I hope they hit Phoenix. Then my dream of seeing my top favorite progressive bands are done. Tool and DT last year, hopefully Opeth this fall.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I didn't know he was one of the guys with a spoken part in Repentance. The only tw voices that I can pick cleanly out of all that are Satch and Stephen Wilson.

I haven't formed an opinion on the album yet. I know I like it, just don't know where it ranks with all their other stuff yet. I've been a Dream Theater fan for years, whereas Opeth is a fairly new group to me. Their albums typically take a few listens before I can connect with it fully and determine how much I like it.

I could talk Dream theater all day, but still need to get my read on with Opeth, I couldn't tell you anything about their history, band member, or any of that - all which I usually find to be important in fully understanding their music.

The Drapery Falls from Blackwater Park is the song that got me hooked, and if you were going to rank songs by their ability to showcase a band and really capture all of their sound, I'd say that song is at the top of the list as I've never heard a song from any band that does that quite as well. I'd also rank that song somewhere in my top ten favorite songs of all time and would probably rank the band in that same list as well.

Dream Theater and Opeth tour well together IMO. They're obviously different styles of music, but they work well together in the same concert.

avelanchefan

Well I will always be a Dream Theater fan first, but Opeth has really grown on me over the last two years. And you are absolutely correct in saying that an Opeth CD takes a few listens to connect with it. I find songs that I skipped over originally are some of my favorites now.

The Drapery Falls is an excellent song and the second best song off of Blackwater Park. But I find the title song to be their best off of that album. Actually after looking at the song list of Blackwater Park you would have to admit that the CD is pretty damn amazing. Only Funeral Portrait is the weakest of those songs. (youtube 300 the movie and Funeral Portrait pretty good home made video of that)

I really don't have a favorite Opeth song though. Maybe Deliverance or Ghost of Perdition.

As for DT, I would have to say all of the Awake CD, and the AA series are tops of my favorite songs. Plus I think The Ministry of Lost Souls is one of the most brilliant songs they have ever done.

hockeyboy

I have Ghost Reveries and found just about every song to have moments that inspired me, and said "these guys are awesome". The problem I couldn't get past is that so many of the songs were very long that about half of the song I became bored.

I am going to check out a couple of songs on this new album, because I agree they are clearly talented.

hockeyboy

Okay, elapsed time 13 minutes. I DL'd Hex Omega, Coil and Porcelain Heart. Hex Omega is bad ****. It kind of reminds me of a metal song influenced by Sgt. Pepper with the overlays and key changes.

+1 on the recommendation AvFan. I am getting the rest of this one.

avelanchefan

Sweet Hockeyboy. Glad you found Hex Omega as excellent as I did. Amazing song and CD.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I've made my way through it a few times, and I like it alot. I think I like it as much as Ghost Reveries, which has been my favorite album of their to date. I'm also picking up on very slight changes in his natural singing style...

organ

Excellent review!

I only have 'Black Water Park' and 'Still life'. Until now, I can't really seem to get myself into them. That's why I only own two of their older cd's. I listen to black, symphonic and power metal more. But after reading your review, I may have to pick up the cd next time I visit the record shop.

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