Opeth was never "my" band. My friend Dan picked up the freshly-released Blackwater Park when he saw it in a shop just because he liked the cover, so while it ended up being an iconic album of my teens, it was a bit dense for a KoЯn fan. Later independent forays won me over, especially Damnation which was instrumental in softening my musical taste. Then they got all big overnight, like they deserved, and everyone liked them, the pricks.
I don't listen to them as often as I should, because they're clearly one of the best. Here's a fickle fan's The Top 13 Opeth Albums.
This sounds like a band in a rut and out of ideas, but it was as well-received as the rest, so it must be me. The old transitions have been smoothed out to the point of dullness, like My Arms Your Hearse without the memorable riffs. I don't think I'd listened to it since it was released, but hearing it fresh again didn't hold any revelations. I've forgotten it already.
Fave: Hex Omega
I saw that they'd released an album last year, but didn't feel like checking it out before now. I'll trust my gut with the Tool album too. I was supportive of Opeth's more mellow direction after the metal got stale – how many bands are still recording classics in their third decade anyway? – but this just sounds like the duller Steven Wilson albums I don't like, puffed up with overblown production and some acting.
Fave: Livets trädgård
Heritage was a bold statement. This is just what they do now. If aliens were to intercept the Opeth probe, but couldn't read the liner notes, they'd probably arrange this one after Damnation as a natural development. When they're not reliving their own past, they're paying tribute to classic prog bands all over the place. Nice to listen to, but disappointingly derivative for a normally creative band.
Fave: River
If the idea behind the proposed double album was to showcase the light and dark sides of the band separately, this half didn't go far enough, its centrist compromises making Damnation the more impressive of the pair. No doubt it's nicer with the melodies, but going for a Kveldssanger/Nattens Madrigal or The White/Marrow of the Spirit type of schism would have been more interesting, as long as they saved 'A Fair Judgement' for later.
Fave: A Fair Judgement
They started to lose me with Deliverance, and while this one's more satisfying, it's not my era. It's interesting to hear the retro prog influences bleeding out from Damnation, and I like the 'ethnic' flavours that give this album its distinctive identity (unless the next one's going to be more of the same), but most of the long songs don't hold my attention any more.
Fave: Beneath the Mire
Their hardest and most energetic in a while – with the time-honoured acoustic balance, naturally – this feels as tight and focused as the old concept albums. Maybe it is one, I never paid attention to an Opeth lyric, even since they became discernible. It was also the first release in more than a decade where songs lodged in my head after the first listen.
Fave: Era
Folky guitar harmonies are out and death metal riffs are in. They make a strong case, and the transitions from hypnotic cacophony to creepy acoustic passages may be the smoothest in the catalogue, but it's a bit too refined for me, since I was enjoying the chaff, and this isn't one I'm ever drawn back to. Maybe it's just too scary. Shit, has that woman always been there?
Fave: The Amen Corner
Like many bands before them, Opeth grew out of juvenile death metal aesthetics, but they didn't make the common mistake of becoming forgettably bland in the process (not yet, at least). Continuing down the breezy Damnation path would have worn thin, but their spookier take on classic prog has legs. I was secularly enjoying a lot of old occult rock at the time, so this was right up my crooked path.
Fave: Marrow of the Earth
Death-metal-loving school chums were appalled when they followed our recommendation to check out Opeth and happened to buy this album. I was hesitant when I got around to it, but that ethereal mellotron was a revelation. One of the only chill-out albums I had when I headed off to university, this and Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack got overplayed before I realised I should maybe start looking for more than just riffs. It's lost some of its shine since.
Fave: In My Time of Need
I can't help but admire how their response to the long songs of the debut was to double down in that regard, literally in the case of the meandering 20-minuter. The melodic twin guitars lead us back out of the forest, the paths more clearly defined in the breaking dawn, despite the jazzy tendencies of the rhythm section holding things up at the back. They wouldn't be invited back for the next outing.
Fave: Black Rose Immortal
I don't know how many steps short of a masterpiece this is, but it's the one that's probably a bit better than any of us remember it being immediately after it finishes, even if it loses me towards the end as all the albums do. They've slackened and lightened up since the previous album, maybe striking the most even balance of the smooth and demonic they ever would and bringing in some '70s folk for good measure.
Fave: Face of Melinda
Feeling like a second, more confident take on Still Life, this highlights the best of Opeth at every extremity. I don't know whether it's just because it's the one I grew up with, but every song's distinctive and instantly identifiable in a way they're really not on the earlier albums, which are more of a nice, gloomy blur. I've never been big on the opening and closing songs though – swap in some good ones from the surrounding albums and it'd be perfect.
Fave: Dirge for November
I'm a sucker for overdone twin lead guitars, as evidently was Opeth in its infancy. This cocky debut has all the talent and uncompromising song lengths of their subsequent work (kicking off with a fourteen-minuter that would take Iron Maiden a full five albums), with two glaring flaws: grim black metal production that sounds like it was recorded in a forest and looser song structures bordering on aimless wandering. These things make it better.
Fave: Under the Weeping Moon
