I’ve had a nice relaxing weekend
chilling out with Sheila playing board games and recharging my batteries.
Disc 1040 is…Still Life
Artist: Opeth
Year of Release: 1999
What’s up with the Cover? A sad woman bemoans her fate at
the edge of a mire. This cover is awesome and more than a little creepy – just check
out the reflection of the cross in the water…
Also of
note, this is a reissue on thick cardboard or pressboard, with great finishing
details. Metal bands seem to be the only ones still putting out beautiful CD
cases (I have another one from Cirith Ungol that’s of similar high quality).
Keep it up – I appreciate it!
How I Came To Know It: I first heard Opeth years ago
when my buddy Kelly played some for me. While I liked it, it didn’t register
enough for me to seek them out. Then I saw them on a list of “Top 50 metal
albums since 1970” for their 2005 album “Ghost Reveries”. I really liked “Ghost
Reveries” and it caused me to start exploring their other albums. “Still Life”
immediately stood out as one of the best.
How It Stacks Up: Opeth has twelve studio albums, but I only
have four of them. Of those four, it is a dead heat between “Still Life” and “Ghost
Reveries” for top spot, but I’m going to go with “Still Life” at #1. I reserve
the right to change my mind when I review “Ghost Reveries”.
Ratings: 4 stars but almost 5
Over
their twenty year career, Opeth has never been afraid to let their sound
evolve, starting with balls-out death metal riffs and slowly moving toward
complex progressive soundscapes. “Still Life” is right in the middle of this
transition, and represents the best of both worlds.
“Still
Life” has it all. There are screaming guitar riffs for the traditional and thrash
metal fans, double bass and guttural growls for the death metal enthusiasts and
haunting, complex guitar picking for the progressive metal fans. It is a lot to
pack into a single album, but Opeth has an uncanny knack to know just where to
steer a song and not get lost in the process.
The
driving force behind the band is singer, guitarist and songwriter Michael
Akerfeldt. Akerfeldt. Akerfeldt is the embodiment of rage and fury when he is
growl singing, but can also drop down into a normal singing voice that has a
rich but haunting tone. When singing like this, he reminds me strongly of Tool’s
Maynard James Keenan, only with more range.
When
Akerfeldt breaks out the acoustic guitar he reminds me of a British folk
singer. With its trilling melody and echoing, stripped down production, “Benighted” sounds like it would be
equally at home at a Renaissance fair or the Wacken open air metal festival. It
gives way to a gorgeous electric guitar solo that is almost jazz-like in its
progressions, without ever crossing the line into wankery. Whether playing soft
or hard, the guitar work on the record is exquisite.
“Still
Life” is a concept album telling the story of someone returning to some kind of
religious cult in order to reunite with his true love. She gets her throat slit
and he gets hanged – the end. Hey, it’s a metal album and these things happen.
Actually, they happen on folk albums as well.
The journey
taking you through this sad tale contains only seven songs, but clocks in at over
60 minutes. Despite the length of both the songs and the overall record, it
never drags. The musical shifts are perfectly placed to hold your interest. The
record hits hard, then soft, then hard again, usually having multiple movements
within each song.
There is
a lot going on in “Still Life” and even though I gave it three successive
listens over the last four days, I feel like I have only begun to plumb its
depths.
For
example, the intricate music and arrangements held my attention so completely
the lyrics became almost an afterthought. However, a quick look at the
(excellently arranged) liner notes had me wanting to delve in all over again
and just focus on the words. “The Moor”
opens with:
“The sigh of summer upon my
return
Fifteen alike since I was here
Bathed in deep fog, blurring my
trail
Snuffing the first morning rays.”
Pretty stuff,
even more so considering English is their second language. The whole album has
this natural narrative quality to it, like you are listening to an audio book
as much as a metal album. Lines have strong alliterative qualities and natural caesuras
that had me thinking of “Beowulf.” Later, on “Serenity Painted Death,” the lovely Melinda’s death is depicted in
stark blood reds, pale white skin and the vacant fading stare of the dying. It
is creepy but brilliant.
“Serenity Painted Death” has all the
musical elements of the album in one song – shredding traditional metal guitar
combines with haunting acoustic playing to capture the narrator’s combination
of rage and grief. It isn’t a happy tale, but it is a tale well told.
I bought a couple more Opeth albums on Friday
(“Blackwater Park” and “Watershed”) and while both were good, they seemed to be
missing something. Then I realized they were solid records, and just suffering
from comparisons to “Still Life”.
Best
tracks: Hard to
separate individual tracks out of the overall experience, but since you asked…The
Moor, Benighted, Face of Melinda, Serenity Painted Death
No comments:
Post a Comment