Opeth - Heritage (review)
Listen here: NPR: Opeth - Heratage, a First Listen
So, my favourite band has decided to abandon most of what made them great & different, and try to become something else. There are elements of this album's sound on 2003's Damnation, but this one has the audacity cranked way up. When I first heard the lead single, "The Devil's Orchard", I didn't know what to think for a good 4 or 5 listens - it was like Rush mated with Deep Purple and Weather Report with Mike Akerfeldt singing. I still don't quite know what to make of the album, but I think I like it since I keep wanting to put it back on. But my feeling is one of... enjoyment mixed with perplexity. It's kind of like listening to early Pink Floyd in a way ( at least for me ).
With Heritage, on the bright side, the writing is mostly good, given you like Opeth's approach to songwriting (lots of breakdowns and strange transitions). No growls, no metal, just complex prog rock. The hard/soft dynamics that Opeth are known for are still there, just toned down to near-silence at times, and turned up to 70s-hard-rock levels at best. Mike's clean voice is as solid as ever.
My main downsides are - Firstly, the songs seem to be simultaneously well-written, with lots of attention to detail, but lacking something. Hooks? Structure? Energy? I'm not sure. Secondly, I think the lyrics at times ("Famine" and "Folklore" in particular) are particularly cheese, or trite, even for ESL euros, which detracts somewhat from the good music surrounding it. Then again, I like some black metal lyrics so there's no accounting for taste..
On a personal level, Opeth albums have been mellowing, and it makes me miss the days of 2002 where I could crank all of "MAYH", "Still Life", "Blackwater Park" or "Deliverance" for an hour-long roller coaster, or even 2005's Ghost Reveries, where the one-two punch of "Ghost of Perdition" and "Baying of the Hounds" would stay blasted in my car stereo for a good 20 minute joy ride.
This album has garnered some rather heated and mixed reviews. This too has bothered me - the positive reviews sound almost pollyannaish (e.g. it's great, it's daring, it's awesome, who needs death metal?) , and the negative ones sound... bitter and revisionist (e.g. believing every prior opeth album was a masterpiece with no flaws; or how Mikael writes jarring style transitions, only to eventually forget about this criticism, and with their next album review claim with incredulity how opeth forgot to write their previously "perfect, seamless" transitions).
This band has long been divisive, being such a mainstay in the metal community for nearly 18 years and 10 albums, genre-bending the entire time. But now Opeth has been completely freed from the shackles of metal, this is going to cause a lot of angst. After all, how many music genres really have a "community" or even a "movement" quality to them? Why is it that way with Metal? It is a group that paradoxically embraces non-conformity and extreme-conformity in different ways. You can be different, but if you're too different, then you're not "true". You are allowed to like other genres of music, just don't distort the "real metal" with it. Perhaps it was the mainstream wilderness years of the 90s, where people felt it was right and proper to "outgrow" metal - "get a haircut and get a real job".... that like minded individuals managed to band together on the internet and say "I do NOT have to outgrow this!" But when one of the leading lights has outgrown the genre, what does that mean to the rest of us that haven't? It's likely best not to overthink this. There are, after all, 9 other Opeth albums with plenty of evil screams combined with soft dynamics to revel in. Yet, some of us inevitably will wonder if another band will be able to capture the dynamic, the spot in the community that Opeth once held... (some might say Mastodon is an approximation, though I don't quite agree - as much as I enjoy them. Ludicra (RIP) had a magical quality, but imploded before garnering mass attention. Agalloch, perhaps? I've loved them since their debut album, and they've raised some attention with Marrow of the Spirit.)
Anyway, enough noodling. Overall, I give Opeth's Heritage a 7.5. Maybe an 8 over time.
highlights for me: the devil's orchard (groovy), I feel the dark (damnation-y), nepenthe (wacky), the lines in my hand (bass!), folklore (i.e. the david gilmour solo at the end).
Stu
So, my favourite band has decided to abandon most of what made them great & different, and try to become something else. There are elements of this album's sound on 2003's Damnation, but this one has the audacity cranked way up. When I first heard the lead single, "The Devil's Orchard", I didn't know what to think for a good 4 or 5 listens - it was like Rush mated with Deep Purple and Weather Report with Mike Akerfeldt singing. I still don't quite know what to make of the album, but I think I like it since I keep wanting to put it back on. But my feeling is one of... enjoyment mixed with perplexity. It's kind of like listening to early Pink Floyd in a way ( at least for me ).
With Heritage, on the bright side, the writing is mostly good, given you like Opeth's approach to songwriting (lots of breakdowns and strange transitions). No growls, no metal, just complex prog rock. The hard/soft dynamics that Opeth are known for are still there, just toned down to near-silence at times, and turned up to 70s-hard-rock levels at best. Mike's clean voice is as solid as ever.
My main downsides are - Firstly, the songs seem to be simultaneously well-written, with lots of attention to detail, but lacking something. Hooks? Structure? Energy? I'm not sure. Secondly, I think the lyrics at times ("Famine" and "Folklore" in particular) are particularly cheese, or trite, even for ESL euros, which detracts somewhat from the good music surrounding it. Then again, I like some black metal lyrics so there's no accounting for taste..
On a personal level, Opeth albums have been mellowing, and it makes me miss the days of 2002 where I could crank all of "MAYH", "Still Life", "Blackwater Park" or "Deliverance" for an hour-long roller coaster, or even 2005's Ghost Reveries, where the one-two punch of "Ghost of Perdition" and "Baying of the Hounds" would stay blasted in my car stereo for a good 20 minute joy ride.
This album has garnered some rather heated and mixed reviews. This too has bothered me - the positive reviews sound almost pollyannaish (e.g. it's great, it's daring, it's awesome, who needs death metal?) , and the negative ones sound... bitter and revisionist (e.g. believing every prior opeth album was a masterpiece with no flaws; or how Mikael writes jarring style transitions, only to eventually forget about this criticism, and with their next album review claim with incredulity how opeth forgot to write their previously "perfect, seamless" transitions).
This band has long been divisive, being such a mainstay in the metal community for nearly 18 years and 10 albums, genre-bending the entire time. But now Opeth has been completely freed from the shackles of metal, this is going to cause a lot of angst. After all, how many music genres really have a "community" or even a "movement" quality to them? Why is it that way with Metal? It is a group that paradoxically embraces non-conformity and extreme-conformity in different ways. You can be different, but if you're too different, then you're not "true". You are allowed to like other genres of music, just don't distort the "real metal" with it. Perhaps it was the mainstream wilderness years of the 90s, where people felt it was right and proper to "outgrow" metal - "get a haircut and get a real job".... that like minded individuals managed to band together on the internet and say "I do NOT have to outgrow this!" But when one of the leading lights has outgrown the genre, what does that mean to the rest of us that haven't? It's likely best not to overthink this. There are, after all, 9 other Opeth albums with plenty of evil screams combined with soft dynamics to revel in. Yet, some of us inevitably will wonder if another band will be able to capture the dynamic, the spot in the community that Opeth once held... (some might say Mastodon is an approximation, though I don't quite agree - as much as I enjoy them. Ludicra (RIP) had a magical quality, but imploded before garnering mass attention. Agalloch, perhaps? I've loved them since their debut album, and they've raised some attention with Marrow of the Spirit.)
Anyway, enough noodling. Overall, I give Opeth's Heritage a 7.5. Maybe an 8 over time.
highlights for me: the devil's orchard (groovy), I feel the dark (damnation-y), nepenthe (wacky), the lines in my hand (bass!), folklore (i.e. the david gilmour solo at the end).
Stu