Opeth - Watershed [Review]

Given that this is indeed one of the greatest death metal albums ever released, ever, I had to review it.
As it has been for the past 10 years, Opeth is my favorite band, after seeing them over 45 times, having met Mikael and the rest of the band in countless amounts, owning their whole discography, DVD, box sets, and proud carrier of over 15 types of their merchandise, I can safely say my addiction and love for their music won't end soon.

2008 was a lucky year...for it was the year cursed with the release of Opeth's current latest album, Watershed.
Like usual, Opeth progressed in a new direction with new influences for their music, never keeping the overt same sound for any album, but of course there are some trademarks they have kept.
Such as:
-Songs of epic length
-A trademark sound of ambient discordant evil
-a combination of clean vocals and powerful bassclef death growls
-meshing brutal death metal passages with progressive intersections, acoustic interludes, and traditional solo methods.

Of course, there were some things that HAVE changed, such as 16 year Opeth veteran Peter Lindgren leaving due to boredom, and ex-Amon Amarth drummer Martin Lopez leaving due to his poor health (such as frequent anxiety attacks).
Not to weep however, enter ex-Arch Enemy guitarist Fredrik Åkesson, bringing upon his sinister shredding styles onto the band, and Bloodbath drummer Martin Axenrot, whose technical jazz/classical influenced drumming skills can easily match those of legends Mike Portnoy, Neil Peart, Thomas Haake, and Gene Hoglan.

To further acquaint you with the band, here is a modern picture.


Left to right:
Per Wiberg (keyboards)
Martin Mendez (bass)
Fredrik Åkesson (guitars)
Mikael Åkerfeldt (clean vocals/deathgrowls/guitars/songwriter/lyricist/comedian)
Martin "Axe" Axenrot (drums)

This band has been praised, particularly for its progressive death metal style without ever going too overtly technical to the point where it doesn't really sound plausible. This is due to Mikael Åkerfeldt, being the band's primary (over 99.5% of Opeth songs and lyrics are written by him) songwriter.
Their meshing of 70s progressive rock, traditional death metal, acoustic folk, and black metal have earned them much praise amongst the metal community.
Allow me to introduce the virgin ears to Opeth.

Warning:
-Opeth is not for casual listeners, it takes enough out of you to get past half of each song (half of their song is usually around 5-6 minutes).
-Not for close-minded thrash elitists.

Here are a couple tracks available for people to listen to to get a feel of their music, because WMG is a bitch and had to take Watershed off of YouTube.
Opeth - Bleak ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfo1OiCbVnw )
Opeth - The Moor ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0hRznmgLUo )
Opeth - Ghost of Perdition ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv-4StX6JOA )
Opeth - Demon of the Fall ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7xOVWXhV6c )
Opeth - Master's Apprentices ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmxNl6oYmn0 )


1.) Coil:
Coil is the starting passage of this album, it is an acoustic passage, featuring Natalie Lorichs (drummer Axenrot's girlfriend) on the secondary vocals.
Coil is a total throw off song, it is amazingly beautiful and short, and one would easily be fooled into thinking Opeth has DRASTICALLY changed their style. It features beautiful acoustic instrumentation and a brilliant atmosphere melded into a very simple song.
10/10

2.) Heir Apparent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW-RM6T9PME
Coil's ambient ending leads straight into Heir Apparent, starting off with a brooding tritone chord, in which fans of old will immediately say "This is where the fun begins." The chord is played continuously over a condescending riff with huge echo to create the usual "possessed sound" of Opeth. A piano enters, playing the same condescending riff, over silence, then the song starts right away again with the tritone chord, leading straight into Mikael's best known trademark, his amazingly low-tone growl. Heavy technical drumming fills the piece, and their inclusion of acoustic passages in between horror-inspired sounds of heaviness is very prominent in this piece. This is one Opeth song to feature a shred solo, courtesy of Fredrik Åkesson. The song ends with a melancholic, melodic riff amongst tight instrumentation.
10/10

3.) The Lotus Eater: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXwNIQpE7h4
The Lotus Eater is the album's heavily progressive piece, with fast transitions between clean vocals and harsh vocals, and time signature switches to 4/4, beyond and back again. This song features the atmospheric keyboard work of Per Wiberg, and a funky keyboard solo from him after a discordant ambient interlude courtesy of Åkesson, Åkerfeldt, and Mendez. Jazz influenced sections are very hearable in this piece. This is currently Åkerfeldt's favorite song to play, not to mention their usual song to play pre-encore.
10/10

4.) Burden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UQCqvkWdAs
The album's stereotypical rock ballad, with progressive and ambient influence. This song features heavy vocal reverb, not to mention ANOTHER awesome hammond solo by Per Wiberg, the drum fills are simple but soulful, and there are a bunch of tradeoff guitar solos, the end of this piece features a repeated acoustic guitar riff while it is slowly detuned, creating a very strange, yet disturbing sound.
10/10

5.) Porcelain Heart:
This album goes back to it's technical discordant sound with this piece, featuring a delayed drum track played faster at a certain part of the song to create a strange, very strange sound. Acoustic passages happen yet again, in between distorted riffs and melodic atmospheric creations. A backing vocalist by the live use of Per Wiberg is optimized alongside Mikael Åkerfeldt's noitceable clean vocals.
10/10

6.) Hessian Peel:
This song is the most ironic song in the entire album, it starts off with a very Yes-influenced guitar riff, in an almost whimsical jazz fashion. It throws one off, and then there is a beautiful clean vocal section by Mikael, the whimsical guitar riff plays along through the song for about another minute, before the drums come in, changing the time signature and the song melody fashion. A mellow string section by the help of Per Wiberg enters along side a latin jazz drum beat. The song rises to include more distortion, until it quites down for a short acoustic interlude, and a piano, before a quiets down and rises into a synthesizer tremolo, and then comes the death metal section, sudden and sharp. With heavy riffs outlined by a dark organ and extreme double bass drumming, this song features yet another shred solo by Fredrik Åkesson. The dual guitar rhythm riffs in this section create the discordant piece over technically insane double bass, and a similar jazz fusion drum fashion on the snare, toms, and cymbals. The discordant chord is played at offbeats, before the guitar goes to a clean sound, and Mikael goes clean voice as way over a nice galloping drum style. The song then enters into an interlude of strange acoustic guitar work and a harmonic minor keyboard section. It ends with another death metal section, and ends on a strange sinister organ arpeggiowork, before fading out with a pulsing synthesizer sound.
10/10

7.) Hex Omega:
The last song on the album, features a mixture of progressive rock ballad, oriental folk metal, and blackened death metal. Mikael's clean vocals are again prominent on this last track, acoustic interludes and melodic electric interludes are all over the place in this track, the song ends on discordant chords on a distorted guitar track and a filling drum track, before it fades out to reveal the end by a held out Organ.
10/10


Metal magazines all over the world were reluctant to give this album any less than a full 10 out of 10. This album, along with most of Opeth's other albums, have showcased the finer capabilities of metal music, to break the boundaries of stereotypes, to abolish the limitations of personal sound, to break all barriers of genre classification, Opeth is not death metal, it isn't progressive metal, it isn't black metal, they are not any of that.
They are simply Music, and a fine form of it, they're OPETH.

sooo, I heard you liek Opeth?

No, seriously I am now ashamed to say that I haven't listened to it...simply ecause there is so much metal that I like that I just never got round to it. I will download it today and if I like it I will buy it.....out of guilt

This sounds like something I really have to check out. I'll download it right now and see if I like it.

It's not really a band to fit in with heavy thrash or power metal fans.
However, if you're a heavy critic of musical theory and praise unorthodox and technical compositional technique, then you'd find this band interesting.




There is another thing of course.
If you're a fan of sounds of the "possessed", "evil", and "apocalyptic" sound, than you'd be right at home here.

WinterSon wrote:

It's not really a band to fit in with heavy thrash or power metal fans.
However, if you're a heavy critic of musical theory and praise unorthodox and technical compositional technique, then you'd find this band interesting.




There is another thing of course.
If you're a fan of sounds of the "possessed", "evil", and "apocalyptic" sound, than you'd be right at home here.

I downloaded it yesterday and it's AWESOME!

i never liked their style actually from the few snogs ive heard but considering your review it seems that it might be a quite good album. Actually one of my friends said that if you don't like "Master's Apprentice" then there is no way to like any other of their songs so i gave up trying them out.

NightwalkerRicku wrote:

i never liked their style actually from the few snogs ive heard but considering your review it seems that it might be a quite good album. Actually one of my friends said that if you don't like "Master's Apprentice" then there is no way to like any other of their songs so i gave up trying them out.

Your friend, like most people, are futile in their attempts to condense Opeth into one song.
Here's the truth.

If you don't listen to everything they've done, then there is no way to like them fully.

Master's Apprentice is my favourite song from them... And Watershed is my favourite album from them... But you can't judge an album with one song... Especially if it is a PROGRESSIVE Metal band...