I havent really had a chance to hear the new album but the first thing that registered were the use of the harsh vocals. (Note, havent heard in cauda much).
This Sputnik Review which contained the following:
- He (Åkerfeldt) talks about it cynically in interviews, saying that it feels like the growls are all anybody ever cared about in the band’s music. And it seems like this is a little bit true, at least for some fans; for a lot of people, the first reaction to hearing “Paragraph 1” was to proclaim that Opeth is “finally back,.*
I dont know what reviews were referenced, but if true, just curious as to whether prog listeners agree that it was always about the growls… Lets face it metal fans can be heavily OTT with change.
I don’t love that this is his perspective. Damnation is one of my favourite albums of theirs and it had no growls, what I dislike about the “third era” is how much it just sounds like 70s prog rock which doesn’t interest me in the slightest
Thats the weird thing, Damnation is probably my favourite Opeth album, just ahead of Ghost Reveries, and I DO love 70’s Prog, and I still didn’t care for their recent albums. It just weirdly didn’t seem like Opeth to me, somehow. Felt like them doing a ‘thing’.
Edit: corrected Deliverance to Damnation. Whoops. [6]
The lack of growls for the last however many albums just felt like they weren’t using all the tools available to them. I was excited to hear harsh vocals again, though I’m still sort of over the 70s prog sound.
I remember reading an interview with mikael and how he loved Camel. So i went and listened to some Camel. He did a very good job making Opeth sound like Camel. Its not my thing and thus i haven’t really been into Opeth for a while.
New album is okay in my opinion.
That is a lot of it for me - I liked the interplay between harsh/clean, or tracks with harsh then clean, or even Damnation. The music didnt necessarily suck if clean, but the songs were good and the opeth sound was great.
Let’s put it like this: I’m going to sit down and give them a listen again. Opeth haven’t been Opeth since Watershed. And that’s fine, Mikael’s choice, but I wasn’t impressed with the switch away. I’m excited to see if it is a return to death stylings, and the Opeth I loved
