I’m feeling a bit groggy tonight,
but that’s to be expected. I’m still fighting a cold and I spent four hours
getting a new tattoo. It’ll be a couple more sessions before it is done, and I’m
pretty excited about the finished product.
Disc 1083 is…Ghost Reveries
Artist: Opeth
Year of Release: 2005
What’s up with the Cover? Creepy candles and the requisite
shadowy figure in the distance that seems to be a mainstay of Opeth album
covers. In this case it might just be a stained glass window depicting a king or something, or maybe it is just a trick of the light. Since it is the
Christmas season let’s assume it is Good King Wenceslas, but since it is an
Opeth album let’s assume when you bring the candles closer you discover King
Wency is all covered in swamp muck and wielding a bloody hatchet.
How I Came To Know It: I read an article where someone
picked a top metal album for every year from 1970 to 2017. This was the 2005
entry.
How It Stacks Up: Opeth has released 12 studio albums but I only
have four. Of those four “Ghost Reveries” comes in second, only narrowly
falling short of my favourite, “Still Life” (reviewed back at Disc 1040).
Ratings: 4 stars
Opeth is a Swedish metal band that blends progressive
rock, blues, jazz and a host of other sounds into a more nuanced exploration of
the dark and dreary places Swedish metal bands tend to wander.
That wandering often leads those Swedish metal bands
to go on at length about Satan. I don’t think most of them actually dig Satan,
but the lyrics are intended to leave that impression. Opeth tends to branch out
into a lot of other themes, exploring intolerance, depression and a host of
other topics.
So what’s the main topic of discussion on “Ghost
Reveries”? Turns out it’s…Satan, or at least part of it. The record explores
the dark thoughts of a character that is being pulled, inexorably toward
horrible decisions by some tempter. Sometimes the character seems in anguish
over it, and sometimes he seems to revel in the power that is being offered to
him.
The overall effect is to create a sense of
foreboding, as the songs make you feel like you are being pursued by some
relentless force, sometimes external and sometimes in your mind. Often the line
between the two is blurry.
On “Ghost Reveries” Opeth’s penchant for musical
discovery is at its height. “Hours of
Wealth” is almost a classical guitar piece, noodling around in slow blues
progressions that reminded me of Eric Clapton. On “Atonement” the guitar riff sounded more like George Harrison sitar
music, which is then paired with a high tinkling jazz piano. It shouldn’t work,
but it does. The guitar work on “Ghost Reveries” is top-notch throughout. Often
I am drawn to bass and drums with this band, but here the guitar melodies were
just too compelling to ignore.
In terms of lyrics, I find Opeth can overstuffed their
songs with big words. When you read it in the liner notes it seems silly but
once it is paired with their musical genius all that rich and horrific imagery
just makes sense. They really like the words “mire” and “fog” and while those
are pretty great words to go with all the foreboding and damp imagery, once I
noticed their overuse I couldn’t stop noticing it. Or maybe it is like when you
buy a new car and then it seems like you see the same make every time you go
driving. There aren’t more of them, you’re just noticing them more now. But I
digress…
Anyway, there is a fair bit of that throat-singing
style but not so much of it that it became overpowering, and when Mikael
Akerfeldt sings more traditionally his vocals have an otherworldly ghostly quality
that juxtaposes nicely. Also, despite a lot of heaviness in places, the band is
tight as hell and lets the thread of the melody pull you through the song. I
wouldn’t dance to this stuff, but it makes for a pretty solid rhythmic head
bob.
This album is a long one, over 66 minutes and with
an average song length of 8:15 (four of them exceed 10 minutes) yet it never
drags or has you wishing it would end. The songs take their time unfolding
internally, and blend nicely into one another as well, even when they are
transitioning from a slow bluesy number into a double-bass driven metal
assault. A couple of those transitions gave me a wicked jolt when they happened
but it was delightfully wicked.
“Ghost Reveries” is definitely thinking-man’s metal,
but it never feels pretentious or forced and when they get their groove on they
can rock with the best of them. That they can mix a whole lot of other elements
into that groove and never lose the plot is an impressive accomplishment. If
you like metal and you have an adventurous ear, this album is for you.
Best
tracks: The
Baying of the Hounds, Reverie/Harlequin Forest, Hours of Wealth, The Grand
Conjuration
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