Worst Opeth Song Moment

I find Atonement rather dull, but I suppose it works ok as a breather when you listen through the whole album. Other than that, the only Opeth song thus far officially released that I don't like is Porcelain Heart.
 
that's the whole point. the transitioning in black rose immortal is top shit, not one band i've heard can make such transitions in a single song like that. and yes it does work.

face of melinda is win.

obviously this is my opinion, but holy fuck this song is amazing. from the insane acoustic intro of amazing complexity to the tempo sound changes//riffs that flow into the song, break off and start again to me is musical genious. This is the most underrated song by Opeth. Bar none.

say that to a band like linkin park. doesn't sound so cheesy now does it?

I think most of my most-disliked parts are on Ghost Reveries in fact:

- The opening riff of Beneath The Mire is just horribly tacky faux-eastern rubbish.
- The 'Reverie' intro the Harlequin Forest is just annoying.
- 'They are the trees'
- The way both those songs just peter out really pisses me off.

I haven't heard Watershed yet so can't comment on that.


^Epic win
 
Can't really think at the moment, but off the top of my head:

- The amount of songs that use triplets almost constantly on the earlier albums...
- The amount of songs that don't seem to be as structured, more just like a collection of new riffs over and over (that don't particularly stand out from one another), on albums up to (and kind of including) Blackwater Park. I don't hate that at all, just don't like it occuring too much.

(probably haven't explained myself very well there...)
 
say that to a band like linkin park. doesn't sound so cheesy now does it?

I don't understand what you're saying here... that compared to Linkin Park it's not cheesy? Well of course, Linkin Park are rubbish, but I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about Opeth. I thought that part of the song was cheesy for a while, that's that.

Nothing can convince me that much of the first two albums works, Morningrise is better put together than Orchid, but on the whole, they just don't quite work. At best I'd say that they have a sort of cohesion, I mean the intro riffs sound like intro riffs, and generally ending riffs tend to sound like ending riffs, but on later albums they found a way to write songs that were long and had some actual structure and cohesion to them, with smooth transitions, rather than trying to just write 10 minutes worth of riffs and stick them together. In fact a lot of the songs can be split up into maybe 3 or 4 sections, so they don't feel that long, wheras on Orchid especially, each song is like 10 different ideas one after the other, which makes them seem to last forever.

As for Ghost Reveries, I know some people seem to really love Harlequin Forest, and it's always better than I remember it, but I've given that album all the time it needs. In fact I felt like all the reviewers who gave the album 5 stars had done what I initially did, which was to have a very high opinion of the whole thing based on the first two songs, assuming the rest would grow on me, only to find that however much I listened to it, those songs were just impenetrable for me.

Oh and yeh, Face of Melinda is an awesome song, but that line is still cheesy whatever you say.
 
...especially on Orchid I just find it almost impossible to tell one song from another. Especially Black Rose Immortal.
:err:

... you may have to listen to these albums some more, then? To an inexperienced listener, any Opeth song would be a confusing hodgepodge of ideas, so get used to Orchid and Morningrise, and you'll discover these albums are just as good, if not better, than the rest of the discography.
 
:err:

... you may have to listen to these albums some more, then? To an inexperienced listener, any Opeth song would be a confusing hodgepodge of ideas, so get used to Orchid and Morningrise, and you'll discover these albums are just as good, if not better, than the rest of the discography.

Yeh I know BRI is on Morningrise, I guess I should have worded that better. What I meant was that on the whole Orchid is the worst at it, but for specific songs, BRI is the biggest culprit. The rest of Morningrise is better than Orchid in terms of songs flowing though.

I'm not new to Opeth you know, I got into them about seven years ago, I've had plenty of time to get used to those albums. Admittedly I have listened to Orchid the least out of any Opeth album because I just generally don't like it that much. I completely disagree that any Opeth song sounds like a hodgpodge of ideas. From MAYH onwards they start to have much clearer structures, ideas that are developed from each other rather than separate ones stuck together, and they even repeat sections which gives a great deal more coherence to the songs and is more satisfying for the listener. Granted, a song like Ghost of Perdition comes across as very complex on the first couple of listens, but it only took me a couple of listens of it to get the general structure of it. Something like Master's Apprentice's has a very neat three-part structure with an intro, interlude, and climax at the end. No matter how may times I listen to Orchid, it's just too bitty. I imagine if you've listened to it over and over again for years then you get to know it and it feels like there's a structure to it, but there is no way it's as good as later stuff. However good Orchid might be, clearly Mikael's songwriting improved vastly since then.
 
I know I'm in the minority here, but I find MAYH to be Opeth's weakest effort. The overall sound of the album just turns me off. I like a lot of the clean parts (since they don't sound like barnyard animals being raped) and a few choice riffs in April Ethereal, Amen Corner, and Demon, but overall this album lacks the magic that other Opeth releases seem to be bathed in.

To me, Blackwater Park is a conundrum - half of the songs are amongst Opeth's best, but the other half are either average or just obvious filler. Harvest never really struck a chord with me, and Dirge is just plain bad (probably my least favorite Opeth tune). The Funeral Portrait, while decent, seems like a collection of various cool riffs with no real climax. This album seems to be praised as the band's magnum opus, but I couldn't disagree more.

If there's ever been an Opeth song that I've wanted to like but just couldn't, it's Wreath. Nothing in this song seems to connect with me, aside from perhaps the opening riff and the solo section. It just drags on and on for so long with no real purpose. I've never understood how so many people can dislike BTPISIO (which I love) while this clunker of a track clogs up Deliverance's opening slot.

Ghost Reveries took a while to grow on me, but after repeated listens the only parts I don't like lie within Atonement and The Grand Conjuration. The former, while not a bad song, just loses my interest after a while. The latter is just way too repetitive for me, with an unnecessarily long intro and boring, predictable lyrics.

With Watershed, I think the band took a step back. So much of this album irks me due to the "dead space" throughout the various songs - it breaks up the pace and feel of the music to me. Perhaps that was their intent? Anyway, there are quite a few parts of this album that I dislike, including:

Heir Apparent: The blast beat parts make my ears hurt, and not in the good way. Opeth is way beyond this simplistic thrash metal-type stuff.

Burden: Sure, the outro is unique, but it really does kill the feel of the song.

Porcelain Heart: This song to me is like The Grand Conjuration without growls - boring and predictable. It just seems to drag on and on with no purpose. However, the middle acoustic section is one of my favorite Opethian moments. It's just too bad they had to sandwich it between a bunch of fluff.

The albums I didn't mention above are pretty much perfect to my ears. There may be a few parts I dislike, but they're like a few seconds long and certainly don't detract from the rest of the song (or album).

Overall, Opeth has a lot less weak material than most other bands.
 
My worst Opeth song moment was when I was listening to Watershed for the first time, and I got to Hessian Peel... and the backwards singing happened. It was one of those WTF moments for me, and for a long time I wouldn't listen to that song because of that part. I have since come to terms with the backwards singing and, besides them, I think Hessian Peel is a good song.
 
I know I'm in the minority here, but I find MAYH to be Opeth's weakest effort. The overall sound of the album just turns me off. I like a lot of the clean parts (since they don't sound like barnyard animals being raped) and a few choice riffs in April Ethereal, Amen Corner, and Demon, but overall this album lacks the magic that other Opeth releases seem to be bathed in.

I agree.
 
I can't believe how many peeps there are out here who consider themselves Opeth fans actually want to cut stuff out from BRI. That's the most blasphemous thought process that ever managed to escape one's mind and into writing. Worst part for me was from the Lotus Eater where he repeats the "mother's son/father's son" bridge for a while. It was just useless and it sounds really bad.
 
I have pretty much listened to Opeth enough to the point where I enjoy everything but if I had to change some things...

- Backwards singing in HP is still kinda lame though it sounds legitimately experimental in BTPISIO
- Two words: Porcelain Heart
- Now that I've listened to it so many times, it would feel awkward without, but The Lotus Eater would've probably flowed better without demented super mario, its a good bit in itself but doesn't really feel right with the guitar parts before and after
- The part w/ growls in Derelict Herds makes the song worse. It's a cool, somewhat experimental song with the other riffs, leads, and keys, but the growl part feels like it just drags on too much and the riff under it isn't good enough for the rest of the song's standards
- I still get a little bored once in a while listening to some seemingly unfocused parts of Advent and Godhead's Lament, but this could change (I only recently started loving The Amen Corner, there is hope)
 
Heir Apparent: The blast beat parts make my ears hurt, and not in the good way. Opeth is way beyond this simplistic thrash metal-type stuff.

Well that's wrong. Themself proved that they could make that kind of riff (which is not a fucking blast-beat) so please don't decide for them how they must sound. And I like that riff a lot though it's simplicity. Great lyrics.

I'll go with my own list now...

1. 5:57 in The Night and the Silent Water.
Cloak of autumn shroud
I gaze, dim ricochet of stars
I reckon it is time for me to leave


2. "When every tears I shed IIIIS FOR YOU"

3. Atonement's "HAA HAAA AHHHHHHH HAAAA HAAA HAAAAAAAH AAAA!"

4. The Grand Conjuration's ending (repetition again and again!). Too long.

5. The classics of Watershed...
 
oh how triumphant it must have been when the band proved to themselves that they could make that kind of riff :rolleyes:

it's nothing special at all. it's a boring old palm muted open string riff and it has been done thousands of times since the dawn of thrash, and i agree that it doesn't really have a place in that otherwise awesome song.
 
Ya I have to agree w/ greasyboat on this one. If a relatively complex artist (relative because Opeth isn't complex in the grand scheme of things but their riffs tend to avoid overdone combinations of power chords and open chugging) starts reducing their material to such levels of simplicity, it may be catchy, but I don't blame fans for complaining.
 
I'll make my list.
for the Watershed album, I dislike Hex Omega. that's it.
Forest of October should have been on the Katatonia album Dance of December Souls instead..
Ending Credits sound like some flashy Joe Satriani song to me.
I always skip Wreath when deliverance is spinning.
same goes for When on MAYH.
I don't like Mikaels voice when he does the held-back kind of singing stuff, like in Moonlapse Vertigo for example. hard to describe it.

flame me all you want :lol:
 
One of the best and most consistently good modern metal bands and still gets 10 pages full of harsh criticism.. that is just, demotivating. I wonder how Mike can cope with it given that he is a bit of a perfectionist himself.