I loved Sorceress, but the muddy production didn't sound good anywhere except for in my car. I thought that Sorceress was the best mix of heavy and mellow Opeth without growls, and wasn't full-blown 70s prog worship ala Pale Communion.
Meanwhile Ghost Reveries is in my collection and I've been listening to it twice. It's a damn good album and the growling doesn't annoy me very much - I wouldn't miss it if it wasn't there though So far Beneath the mire is my favourite but I'm sure I will discover some more....
I'm playing Ghost Reveries now. Reverie/Harlequin Forest to be exact - the last 6 plus minutes are just ridiculously great.
Me too. He's a great singer, I never really understood why he felt he needed to rely so much on the cookie monster stuff in the earlier days. Really enjoyed their last few records and the live show I saw last year.
I love BWP but it sounds like crap IMO. I hope we get some death metal vocals on the new album. The growls make the smooth vocals even better. It's all about contrast, the light and the dark. At least it was ! I love the last 3 but that dynamic has been LOST
He wasn't relying on it, it was what he wanted to do. He also did it better than anyone ever has before or since. Have you listened to all the albums ? There's beautiful smooth vocals on every one. Even my girlfriend likes both vocal styles now haha
I think BWP is great-sounding on vinyl (I love SW's work), but the CD is loud as hell. Otherwise I agree 100% with your post. The growls took the longest time for me to get into while I loved all the other aspects of their music, but now that they're gone I miss them!
Could not agree more. Overall I really do NOT like death metal but that run of albums leading up to Heritage is really my favourite Opeth. The ones you mention plus Blackwater Park. There’s just something powerful and unique - yet somehow simultaneously delicate about that music. Don’t get me wrong, I like their more recent albums too, but somehow to me they are at their best when alternating the growls with the singing. Such unique and interesting music.
I have. The parts where he's actually singing are great. I don't mind the cookie monster stuff for effect during a really intense/heavy section, but when it goes on for more than a few lines, I'm already over it. Just not my thing. Maybe he did it "better" but all those guys sound the same when they're just growling. I'm much happier with the direction they've gone the last several records.
Understandable, vocals are a huge thing for me. I'm just saying it grows on you. People I know used to leave the room during those "parts" and have warmed to it. You miss out on so much good music if you don't.
They still did some stuff from that era when I saw them last year, and it was a bit more tolerable live (I guess because in a big auditorium it was less in your face due to the sound mix). It's just not a thing I'll ever really get, musically, other than it being an occasional effect....like a vocalist with a distortion pedal.
Agreed. Opeth is literally the only band I like that has ever regularly featured death growls, and I love them because the music is so good. I get why some are turned off by the growls, but I cannot imagine songs like Bleak and Deliverance, two of their best, without them. The contrast between the growls and the normal singing elevates so many of their songs.
Well - I am a simple person and quite simply, to me Opeth is a band that put an interesting album called Damnation, then disappeared for a long time. Then, they came back as a heavy prog (alla Il Balleto Di Bronzo, imho) and so far they have put out 3 great albums, Heritage, Pale Communion and, Sorceress. Oh, I also vaguely remember a death metal band also called Opeth - but since death metal is of no interest to me, Opeth, the death metal band is just a name. I wonder which band is putting out an album on 2019, the death metal band or the excellent prog band... (... btw, you know what I mean! ) v
I think you're selling them short by calling them death metal, they're a lot more varied than your typical DM band. For 2019 I suspect that we'll be getting the prog band that is rocking out a lot more, clean vocals only as MA is pretty much done with those at this point in his career.
Agreed. Categorizing their early to mid era stuff as merely "death metal" is selling the band and their diversity short.
