Metal Reviews

Perhaps, but you only really seem interested in acknowledging replies that point out the difference between fact and opinion. Of course we can all appreciate this, but it really calls into question the purpose of having a thread like this.

Regardless of what all our feelings may be on the merits of there work, you seem to be implying that it's a fact that if we were to take any Opeth riff, we can find a precedent for it in a PF song. Oh, except that Opeth have different tuning, different vocals, more twin lead partts, different drumming... Honestly, I think it's a fact that this is not the case. Especially, as TIE points out, in the pre Steven Wilson era- where there are still prog rock influences but Opeth are still 90% a metal band.

For one, that reply was sarcastic, but e-sarcasm, as I continually forget, is hard to detect.

I said there were exceptions, like the mediocre chugga-chugga death metal riffing that they throw in occasionally, such as in Wreath.

Wait, wait, wait. Where did I say that they weren't a metal band? I don't see that anywhere in this thread. Saying that they get all their riffs from Pink Floyd isn't the same as saying they aren't METAL, which they usually are, except for occasionally when they do stuff like Harvest and Patterns in the Ivy.

hyahh. definitely Exodus influenced Metallica.. even tho its not realli that much..the leadworks were laid down in Exodus before Metallica

Onto Ghost Reveries... after a dozen of spins i hav to say it is bleedin solid... but "Purgatorial Agony" is jus like umm... a waste of 3:26 mins of music space IMO....hahahit sounded jus like those old skool death metal which try to depicts some kinda weird psycho image or sumthing... but all in all this is a solid album!

i haven't heard this one, but i want to.

am i the only one who doesn't love OR hate them?

btw, on deliverance and damnation - i ever heard them :oops:
are they both blackwater park-ish?

This is a pure Opeth sound, I have heard it like three times and it is nice to listen to. A good album

Haha... yeah my sarcasm detectors don't work quite as well in cyberspace as they do in real life. And also I agree with you regarding Wreath, it is certainly a pretty mediocre song.

So as we agree, Opeth are a metal band, and as such they have metal riffs, which is something radically different from anything that PF would have based a song around. Listen to Morningrise and My Arms Your Hearse especially, and these songs are all based around much of the same kind of twin lead melodeath riffing that you would expect to hear in the work of other swedish melodeath bands, and this is a tradition continued at least over there next three albums as well. And Orchid is 95% melodeath with the odd folk influence. In fact, this is what forms the basis of their repertoire. There is more in common with other Swedish bands from that scene than PF. Now, the influence of the prog bands that you identify is what combines with the melodeath to make them unique. There are very few metal bands attempting this kind of fusion, and the ones that do rarely have as much of a feel for and understanding of prog rock bands as Opeth, imo. So you could say that their innovation is not the fact that they have mellow bits, but the fact that they also place as much time and effort into them as they do the heavy bits.

Deliverance is very BWP-ish, but Damnation is a mostly acoustic album. If you like Opeth's slower stuff, you'll like it too.

The tendency for Opeth fanboys to dismiss Opeth haters as hating them only because of the hype is ridiculous. I was an Opeth fan years ago, and I still bought every album until this one despite the dip in quality starting with Still Life. I think it's crazy that people love their newer output, but I have been over this ground many times. I still love Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms Your Hearse, but everything after has been different versions of medicore. The Grand Conjuration is the worst song they have ever written. I'll still probably get this, and like one or two songs, but I'd bet on a 60/100 from me.

To be fair it's equally ridiculous for people who don't like Opeth to dismiss people who do as mindless fanboys. But, y'know, people seem to do it anyway. :roll:

Hey guy, I never dismissed all Opeth haters as hating them only for the hype. I only brought up that its a possibility that some people hate Opeth for this reason. Just because you dislike them for an admirable reason doesn't mean everyone else does too.

Yeah, I'm an Opeth fanboy, what of it?! :evil:

I hate Opeth because they're boring as hell and overly pretensious. ANd I have heard them, in fact I used to have 3 of their albums before I realized how shitty they were and traded all three for a copy of Mad Locust Rising. Best deal I ever made.

yeah that riff... blows my mind. just try and get it right! and i'm a drummer too!!

oh and i'd consider myself an opeth fanboy too. whats so bad about that, opeth kick ass.

A lot of people would consider it bad to be a fanboy of anything, really.

Of course you realize my tongue was firmly implanted in my cheek when I wrote that. Fanboy has a pretty negative connotation; I don't know if I would seriously call myself a fanboy of anything.

98 is kinda high but 60 is way too low.... i would think a little bit around 93-95

my arms your hearse is still on of the best

opeth aren't pretentious o_O


on a different topic, i do think that Opeth have gone very far downhill since Blackwater Park

Agreed here, but on first impressions I think Ghost Reveries is better than Deliverance and Damnation both, so those two were more of a wobble than the start of a steady decline.

Me thinking they are overly pretentious is just an opinion. Blind Guardian are a very pretentious band.....which is fine, but Opeth is overly pretentious. This whole forced avant garde artistic thing gets boring after a while....well it got boring right away for me. Where' the spark in the music?? It has no energy either. SO in other words...."yawn"

Ok, I couldn't make it through more than 2 and a half pages of this thing, but all of those crying "they're so original!" and "I dare you to name a band they've ripped off"... ever heard of a little band called Edge of Sanity? Ever see Jurassic Park? Do you remember when Malcolm is talking to the scientists about how they stood on the shoulders of giants to make the progress they did?

Opeth simply followed the blueprint that EoS laid out, most notable on a song like 'Twilight'. Dan Swano, guitarist/vocalist and main creative force behind the band, engineered and co-produced Opeth's first two albums and was apparently old chums with Akerfeldt, as they did a little collaborating as well and have worked together in Bloodbath and Katatonia. They credit him in the thanks section of Morningrise as "our guide".

Now, I'm not saying Opeth should be burned alive because they happened to catch onto what Dan was doing and think it was something to pursue themselves, but give credit where credit is due here people.