Any Opeth Fans?

[Manurack]

Okay so I've been an Opeth fan since I was 17 years old when Opeth was on the Megadeth Gigantour II tour DVD.

Once they played "The Leper Affinity" live on that DVD, I loved em. I heard of them before with the song "The Grand Conjuration" on some metal compilation album, then I heard their title track "Blackwater Park" and I've been hooked to them since.

I know they got a lot of hate when Mikael Akerfeldt only sang clean vocals on one of their newer albums, but HOLY FUCK. This once unknown band from Sweden really blew me away.

 

[Seybsnilksz]

Second best band of all time for me. I'll admit I was slightly sceptical when Heritage was announced to be very old scool, but they continue to prove with every album that they still write fantastic music. And In Cauda Venenum was the best thing they did in a long time.

Also I did this cover with a couple of guys last year, gonna try to do Deliverance sometime this year.

 

[KailM]

Yes, absolutely—they are in my top-5 all-time favorite bands list.

My first introduction to them was Ghost Reveries, which is a damn fine album. For a while after that, I bought one new CD from them every month, going back further and further in their catalog until I’d collected them all. What a band!

I saw them at that Gigantour with Archenemy (Angela was still crushing it), Lamb of God, Overkill, and of course Megadeth. Every one of those bands destroyed, but Opeth stole the show IMO.

They lost me after Watershed, which was still a good album, I feel.

And it has nothing to do with Michael not doing death metal vocals anymore. I consider Damnation to be one of their best albums, and there are no DM vocals on it. It wipes the floor with Heritage and everything after it.

What’s missing from their new material is the dark, brooding atmosphere with stirring, emotional uplifts. Michael tried so hard to change the band into a “not metal” band in favor of 70s prog that he ruined everything that made them progressive to begin with. I’ve listened to all their new-era albums and even got excited for a few moments when I heard the first two singles off In Cauda Venenum— but after hearing the rest of the album I could tell it was just more of the same— randomly assorted ideas thrown together trying to be “prog” but failing to capture the essence of what made the band special earlier in their career. Totally forgettable, IMO. Sadly.

 

[gnoll]

I've sort of tried to get into this band but never totally got it.

I like some of their early stuff like some songs from My Arms, Your Hearse, but much of their other stuff doesn't hold my attention so well.

I'm open to giving them another chance though, maybe you guys have some recommendations on specific songs to check out? And if so why they're good and what to listen for?

 

[Lozek]

I saw them supporting Morbid Angel in '96, their songs were so long and boring that I ignored them for years. Since they turned into a 70's Prog band, I can't get enough of them.

 

[Lorcan Ward]

I was listening to one of my punk rock CDs when one of my siblings showed me a radio station that was doing a metal hour. I switched over and heard Opeth(and death metal) for the first time. It blew my mind, I got Still Life a year or so later and listened to it at least 100 times as a teenager.

This song + album is peak Opeth IMO. I flew with a friend to London for the Royal Albert Hall shows and it was euphoric hearing this played live:


Like @KailM said even their acoustic material had the same dark atmospheric sound as the heavy death metal songs.

 

[akinari]

randomly assorted ideas thrown together trying to be “prog”

Every time I've tried to get into this band, that's been my impression.

 

[ElysianGuitars]

I love Opeth up to Watershed. I actually like In Cauda Venenum a lot as well, but don't like the stuff in between Watershed and ICV.

 

[Musiscience]

Huuuuuuge fan until 2008, then not a fan at all. I still consider the pre-2008 releases as some of the best metal albums ever released.

 

[jco5055]

yeah I'm in the crowd of "Post Watershed don't care for them at all", but pre that (and I was 19 when Heritage came out for context) they were easily my favorite band...I wish they would have changed their name post Watershed just so I can ignore them completely without being disappointed in the change of style.

I've said before, my biggest issue is the constant organ stuff going on in the new stuff, a friend of mine said they had morphed into "if the Spooky Skeletons song was a band" and I can't get that out of my head haha

 

[slan]

Huge fan - probably my favorite band of all time. Blackwater Park was my first death metal album and it seriously altered my perspective on music. Seeing them in 2004 on my 16th birthday was life-changing.

I was initially resistant to Heritage and the albums that came after, but I've grown to love this version of the band. Their death metal era peaked with Ghost Reveries, and I'm kind of glad they moved on from that sound after Watershed, which was a huge letdown for me. Heritage is now one of my favorite records.

 

[ArtDecade]

Opeth has been terrible for the last decade.

 

[mastapimp]

yeah I'm in the crowd of "Post Watershed don't care for them at all", but pre that (and I was 19 when Heritage came out for context) they were easily my favorite band...I wish they would have changed their name post Watershed just so I can ignore them completely without being disappointed in the change of style.

I've said before, my biggest issue is the constant organ stuff going on in the new stuff, a friend of mine said they had morphed into "if the Spooky Skeletons song was a band" and I can't get that out of my head haha

Same here...I don't remember much of the organ sound until "The Baying of the Hounds"...but my god, it's everywhere in their last few albums.

I discovered them by seeing a little blurb in Guitar World when Blackwater Park was getting released. I asked some friends that were into the Swedish metal scene at the time if they'd heard this band and they said "They're ugly as sin, but they can rock, you should check them out." After that, I got hooked on their back catalog and enjoyed all their subsequent releases up to Heritage. I also really miss Martin Lopez' drumming. His replacement is okay, but just doesn't have the same dynamics/organic feel.

My favorite albums of theirs came in the middle of their catalog and are ones I'd consider masterpieces: Still Life, Blackwater Park, Deliverance, Ghost Reveries. I learned so many of those songs on guitar and it was a fun change of pace learning the material on Ghost Reveries as there's about 5 or 6 different tunings used. I'll sometimes play the acoustic/clean riffs from "Deliverance" and "Moonlapse Vertigo" whenever I pick up someone else's acoustic guitar and they'll often ask me what I'm playing. When I tell them it's from a Swedish death metal band, they never believe me.

 

[Mathemagician]

Blackwater Park is a masterpiece. And Damnation is the kickoff album for sad boi hours.

Any “flack” they get for their sound evolving is unwarranted. They have enough music that everyone can find something they love.

 

[groverj3]

Blackwater Park and Ghost Reveries are absolute masterpieces. I do like their output since, even if it's totally different.

 

[sleewell]

LOVE opeth.


saw them live, they were great. he seems like a funny dude.

 

[Manurack]

One thing that caught me off guard about Opeth was that Mikael Akerfeldt always played a blue PRS Custom 24 live for a long time.

Then his PRS SE signature was this.

While I don't exactly love blue guitars, but I would've definitely bought a PRS Mikael Akerfeldt blue signature Custom 24.

 

[KailM]

Opeth has been terrible for the last decade.

For me, the last decade hasn’t been ‘terrible’ — just more like “I’ll see myself out...”

 

[ArtDecade]

For me, the last decade hasn’t been ‘terrible’ — just more like “I’ll see myself out...”

If you are going to spend a decade masquerading as a 70s Prog-Rock band, why would you choose Camel to be the archetype and not Yes or King Crimson? Opeth is a mess.

 

[CerealKiller]

Big fan of Deliverance and Still Life.