CD Review: Opeth - Watershed
Swedish death prog metallers Opeth have done it again! I wondered if their ninth album “Watershed” could possibly top 2005’s superb “Ghost Reveries”. But with this new one, they’ve taken their mix of Scandinavian cookie-monster death metal and 70s pastoral English prog to yet another level.
There’s a bit less of the old cookie monster on this one; Michael Åkerfeldt sings ‘clean’ on quite a few of the heavier parts as well as the many quieter sections. But the appeal to me has always been the complex symphonic instrumentation rather than the vocals, with Åkerfeldt’s voice as another instrument. These guys are superb musicians, but never once descend into self-indulgent widdling. Åkerfeldt comes over as a composer first, and a muso second. And that’s how it should be.
It’s got all the trademark Opeth sounds; dense swirling guitars, piledrivingly heavy sections giving way to gentler acoustic passages, and some beautiful twin guitar harmonies with Michael Åkerfeldt and new guitarist Fredrik Åkesson. Per Wiberg’s keys are more fully integrated into the band’s sound on this disk; check out the fantastic Hammond organ solo on “Burden” (And I bet that’s a genuine B3, not a synth with a Hammond patch!). And naturally there’s plenty of Mellotron.
While there are still many extremely heavy moments, the balance seems tilted slightly more in favour of quieter more atmospheric parts; you can hear a strong Camel influence in one or two places. Out-and-out metal fans might not rate it quite as highly as their early work, but prog fans who liked their decidedly non-metal “Damnation” will find much here to enjoy. For me, its the contrast between the lighter and heavier sides of their music that accounts for a lot of their appeal.
June 18th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Yep. Which is why I don’t particularly like ‘Watershed’.
June 18th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
If I’d said ‘progressive’ rather than ‘prog’, I bet you would have liked it
June 18th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
When it comes to Opeth, I do want full-on death metal, so my disappointment that ‘Damnation’ wasn’t a one-off experiment is a bit of a barrier. Perhaps I’ll appreciate ‘Watershed’ after multiple playthroughs, but each time I reach for the CD I’m more inclined to grab ‘Blackwater Park’ or ‘Still Life’ instead.
The down side of liking progressive music is that it sometimes goes in directions I wouldn’t choose to follow; I can respect that, even if I don’t especially like it.