Opeth - 2001 - Blackwater Park [TQMP]
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- Audio > FLAC
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- 486.84 MB
- Tag(s):
- opeth 2001 blackwater park eac flac cue log artwork tqmp
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- +0 / -0 (0)
- Uploaded:
- Jun 27, 2011
- By:
- quose
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| Opeth - 2001 - Blackwater Park |::
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| Ripped w/EAC v1.0b2 (Secure) :: Encoded w/FLAC v1.2.1 -8 |::
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| No. of Files /488,231 bytes) |
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| Type / Quantity _________ CD (Compact Disc) (* 1) |
| Date Released ___________ 27th of February, 2001 |
| Genre(s) ________________ Metal |
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+------+ Review +--------------------------------------------------------------+
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| After the release of "Still Life" in 1998, Opeth went into the studio to |
| record the latest step in their musical evolution. Their career had |
| taken them through many of the shapes of modern black metal up to this |
| point. Their albums "Orchid" and "Morningrise" proved that they had |
| mastered the art of melodic death metal, and from that point the band |
| decided to go in a different direction with "My Arms, Your Hearse." Some |
| fans, however, regarding the direction taken on "Morningrise" to be |
| excellent, balked at the decidedly more dissonant, heavier tone of the |
| new album. Thus, on "Still Life," Opeth married the progressive |
| influences and the heavy influences in the way that "Blackwater Park" |
| displays, with equal parts light and heavy, in addition to a whole lot |
| more reverb and thickness, courtesy of new producer and Akerfeldt |
| confidant Steven Wilson, of the British prog band Porcupine Tree. |
| |
| "Blackwater Park" is, as said above, mostly a refinement on the sound of |
| "Still Life," with little new innovation or changes in direction. There |
| are full-blast metal moments, moments of breathtaking beauty, and |
| lighter, acoustic sections layered with Akerfeldt's ever-improving clean |
| vocals: in short, everything one can currently expect from Opeth. In |
| this case, this "refinement" proved so successful that it is thus far |
| Opeth's highest-selling album, selling hundreds of thousands of copies |
| in the States. Here's the album track by track. |
| |
| The Leper Affinity |
| "Blackwater Park" was my first Opeth album. I didn't know precisely what |
| to expect. I had heard excellent things about them and I was, believe it |
| or not, apprehensive. Would I like a marriage of a genre I despise(death |
| metal) with a genre that I love(progressive rock)? With that attitude in |
| mind, the opening to this song was terrifying. Just terrifying. A |
| discordant piano chord fades slowly in, louder and louder, until it's |
| really loud and you know the explosion is coming any moment, but it |
| doesn't come it doesn't come and then it does, and the explosion is |
| greater than you imagined. The riffs are fast, dissonant, and evil, and |
| the aura this music gives off is of a castle where nothing except the |
| most perverted rituals are performed. This barrage continues with |
| Akerfeldt's reverbed, awesome death growls and never lets up. The |
| assault gives way to the most perfect guitar solo I've heard Opeth |
| perform(and I have nearly their entire discography), and then breaks |
| through to one of their famed harmony breaks, with lead guitars singing |
| over rubble-pounding chords. Sound melodramatic? This is simply the way |
| my emotions were being manipulated on my first listen. It's not |
| melodramatic: this was how Opeth's sound and fury being unleashed on a |
| completely new listener felt. The acoustic sections and clean singing |
| that follow are just gorgeous, and the song ends with a great prog-rock |
| riff and an eerie, self-contained piano section. This was my first taste |
| of Opeth, and I already knew I loved them. |
| |
| Bleak |
| Surpassed only by "Black Rose Immortal" and closely followed by "The |
| Moor," this song is my favorite Opeth song. It's groove is considerably |
| slower and, if possible, even more eerie than the previous tune, and a |
| highlight is the echoing E-bow lead floating above the dry-sounding |
| acoustics and the distorted guitars. The rest of the song begins to |
| follow a fairly standard structure until Akerfeldt's clean vocals make a |
| return with some of the best singing of his career. It slowly quiets |
| down until we reach an almost bluesy acoustic section, and I personally |
| was amazed at how WELL the death metal section flowed into this part. It |
| left me feeling like, "How did I get from there to HERE?" What follows |
| is a great riff with a heavily distorted lead that itself goes back to |
| the most gorgeous, instrumentally dense section Opeth ever put to tape. |
| Listen to this with headphones and hear everything that's going on. It's |
| breathtaking. The song ends with repeats from earlier and then the sound |
| of a tape breaking. Awesome. |
| |
| Harvest |
| In the tradition of "Benighted," we have a nearly all-acoustic song |
| here, with no metal sections. My opinion is mixed. It's certainly very |
| pretty, but since I wasn't used to Opeth's habitual use of dissonant |
| chords in their acoustic sections, the middle section threw me for a |
| while. I eventually got used to it, though, and realized that for Opeth, |
| writing something standardly melodic would have been a cop-out. This |
| isn't the best, but it's still very high-quality. |
| |
| The Drapery Falls |
| Okay, now, this song is interesting. It seems to be more "mood music" |
| than anything else Opeth has made. The important thing, though, is that |
| this song is next to impossible to categorize. It's so original and |
| unique-sounding, combining so many various elements of a lot of |
| different types of music, that I can't believe that four guys just came |
| up with this stuff in a couple of weeks. The intro is really the prime |
| example of that. Where, in any band anywhere, have you heard an intro |
| so...impossible to pin down? The sections that follow are totally cool, |
| with melancholy acoustic while(It's that E-Bow Again!) the slide guitars |
| swim around the sea of reverb above them. The metal sections are fairly |
| standard and to be honest, go on for way too long, but the short |
| acoustic bits resolve back to the intro in a nice way. |
| |
| Dirge for November |
| This song is easily the most forgettable one on here. That said, the |
| beginning and ending to this one are just great. The reverb-laden "wall |
| of sound" breaks down to great effect with Mikael just sings and plays |
| his guitar for a few seconds, and his voice isn't even tuned properly, |
| which adds an interesting contrast. There's more beautiful music, but |
| it's followed by music that I just can't get into. The metal music |
| doesn't make me bang my head, it just makes me scratch it. This is |
| followed by a way-too-long, but nice, clean section with eerie E-bow |
| harmonies lurking in the mix. The weakest link in the album, but not |
| THAT bad. |
| |
| The Funeral Portrait |
| The 12-string that opens this sounds very good, but the riffs that |
| follow almost sound like ones lifted from the middle of Dream Theater's |
| "Another Day!" ("Duuh-duh-duh-duh-da-dat-daa-da-da-dum..) Still, it's |
| very cool. The acoustic sections are real evil on this, helped out by |
| Lopez's nice fills. The long, multiple guitar solos that close the song |
| are also pretty nice, as are the harmony vocals. A solid Opeth song. |
| |
| Patterns in the Ivy |
| An instrumental acoustic/piano duet. This is a short, nice interlude |
| piece. I don't really have much to say, 'cause it's only a minute long. |
| |
| Blackwater Park |
| This song is chock full of the heaviest, most evil riffs Opeth ever |
| recorded. The song also reverses the structure of "The Leper Affinity" |
| by placing it's mellow interlude right near the beginning, which, unlike |
| other such interludes, is not hampered by its length. Then, the metal |
| assault which follows does not let up for a single moment for the rest |
| of the song. Particularly awesome is Akerfeldt's "death-metal harmony" |
| in which two screams of different levels of bowel-churning-ness are |
| combined to make the most evil metal blast on the entire album. You must |
| listen to this. It's amazing. |
| |
| FINAL THOUGHTS: |
| I know this review was long and a lot to digest, but so is the album. It |
| requires patience, and a keen musical ear: there's really no point in |
| listening to Opeth if you're not going to really listen to them. The |
| production is awesome, being really, really dense and bone-dry at the |
| same time. It truly adds to the relentlessly bleak mood of the CD. The |
| deluxe import has two bonus tracks, "Still Day Beneath the Sun," an |
| acoustic number that is quite nice, and "Patterns in the Ivy II" a rare |
| "sequel song" that is very beautiful, and which is quite worthy of the |
| title. The harmony solo at the end is particularly beautiful: I go out |
| for walks at night listening to this and just close my eyes, thinking |
| about stuff. All true lovers of rock music will like this CD. It is |
| already a classic within the metal community and could easily turn into |
| one of the most influential rock albums of any genre of the early part |
| of the 21st century. |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+------------+
+------+ Track List +----------------------------------------------------------+
| +------------+ |
| No. | Title | Duration |
| ----+--------------------------------------------------------+---------- |
| 001 | The Leper Affinity ................................... | 00h10m23s |
| 002 | Bleak ................................................ | 00h09m16s |
| 003 | Harvest .............................................. | 00h06m01s |
| 004 | The Drapery Falls .................................... | 00h10m54s |
| 005 | Dirge for November ................................... | 00h07m54s |
| 006 | The Funeral Portrait ................................. | 00h08m45s |
| 007 | Patterns In the Ivy .................................. | 00h01m52s |
| 008 | Blackwater Park ...................................... | 00h12m08s |
| ----+--------------------------------------------------------+---------- |
| |
| Total Length ____________ 01h07m13s |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+-----------+
+------+ Audio Rip +-----------------------------------------------------------+
| +-----------+ |
| Ripped with _____________ EAC v1.0b2 [http://www.exactaudiocopy.de] |
| Encoded with ____________ FLAC v1.2.1 [http://flac.sourceforge.net] |
| Encoding Stats __________ 1411kbps / 44.1kHz / CBR / 16-bit / Stereo |
| Tag(s) __________________ Vorbis |
| Includes Artwork? _______ Yes |
| Includes Rip .LOG? ______ Yes |
| Includes Rip .CUE? ______ Yes |
| Includes Playlist? ______ Yes |
| |
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rainfo v0.2 [2011/06/27 @ 21:22:11]