Artist Page: Opeth

A strong follow up to Ghost Reveries, with the same tendencies to add more mellow passages between the extreme parts. In fact, it's the only album (except of course Damnation) that has more songs with only clean vocals than songs with growls. The music is also quite different from the Still Life - Deliverance era, with half of the band having been replaced and with the addition of a permanent keyboardist. Sounds like we have here a transitional album, but the transition seems almost complete...

Thanks in a fairly large part to Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) this is as good as Opeth's Still Life but with even more amazing production. Pefect length, and acoustic/heavy parts. This and Still Life is the peak of Opeth, but personally, I find this release to be their ultimate peak.

A very strong release. Mikael is still the main songwriter, but it seems like the other band members (especially the new ones at drums and 2nd guitar) add their influences to the compositions more prominently than on the previous albums. And the keyboards are no longer side effects like on Ghost Reveries - in fact they give this a lush, symphonic touch which reminds me of Camel - who Mikael is a huge fan of - more than anything they did before. The growling is still there, but to a lesser extent - for the first time clean vocals dominate a heavy Opeth album. Add to that the epic long track, and you get - a masterly prog album!

No growls makes my ears much happier. This is a magnificent album.

Songs sound even worse live than recorded. Probably pretty good if you can handle the vocal growls, but I can't. Thought I would try it to see if it sounded any better, but it doesn't.