Speaking as I was a day or two ago about bands I haven't featured here in a while, let's talk about everybody's favourite Swedish death-cum-folk prog act, Opeth. Last year's 70's-syle opus Pale Communion was pretty solid, but I'm still of the opinion that Mikael and the gang will be hard pressed to ever top the fusion of melody and metal that is 2008's Watershed.
Like I've said before, I think Watershed represents the perfect proportional mix of Opeth's older death metal influences and its more recent forays into folk, prog, and 70's rock. Watershed is definitely a "start to finish" kind of album for me, meaning if I have my druthers I'd prefer to listen to the whole thing in one go, rather than cherry picking just a few songs from it.
If, however, I'm forced to pick just one track from Watershed, which in a sense I am, this time around I'm going with epic late-album number "Hessian Peel". This eleven-and-a-half minute monster is a microcosm of what makes Watershed great: moody and mellow acousticness gives way to crushing heavy about six minutes in. If you want the best of both Opeth worlds, "Hessian Peel" should be one of your first stops.
No comments:
Post a Comment