Opeth - Beneath the Mire

     Time for a little Throwback Thursday action, and this week we're going back an even decade to one of my favourite Opeth albums for a nice, crunchy slice of metal-fried prog.

     I'm sure Opeth purists are screaming Blackwater Park at their computers already, but for my money Ghost Reveries remains one of the band's best. It came out right in that butter zone between Opeth's metal and prog phases, when they were in the process of going increasingly Rock but still had a firm enough grounding in Metal. Your song today, classic cut "Beneath the Mire", might be a little more on the prog-rockier end of things, and little lighter on the full-on metal than some of the other tracks from Ghost Reveries, but it's got its share of grooves and goodness.

     It'd probably be a pretty good idea to put this whole album on, if you're looking for something to listen to, but at the very least do yourself the favour of jamming "Beneath the Mire". It's eight minutes well spent.

Album of the Week(end): Opeth - Watershed

     Super late on the draw with your album this week, but I'll use as an excuse the fact that I've got a little something in the works... a little something you'll have to wait a while longer for, but a little something I think you might enjoy. Anyways, rather than just skip the week, I've decided that this week you just have to spend the weekend doing your homework -- but you have to rock it extra hard. Hopefully that won't be a problem, given the subject matter.

     What subject matter, you ask? Well, this weekend you're going to be getting closer to Opeth's 2008 monster Watershed. As any Opeth fan will tell you, I could recommend any number of albums from the band's catalogue, and for more than just a weekend, or even a week, but Watershed marks a...'watershed'... moment in my own personal musical journey. (Sorry, I couldn't resist. I really couldn't)

     Back when this album came out, I was decently into Opeth, particularly their more recent stuff (the Damnation and Deliverance records, as well as Ghost Reveries),  and I was also really starting to listen outside the mainstream metal box (or at least, I suppose, what I considered to be the mainstream metal box back then -- lots of metalcore, mainly). So when this Swedish band that I already considered to be pretty damn good put out the perfect mix of rock, metal, jazz, blues, and folk, all on a single record, I was pretty much instantly hooked.

     Assuming (stupidly, perhaps) that you're not already familiar with this one, I'm hoping you'll get pretty instantly hooked too, since you've only got the weekend to sit with it. But really, any time you give to this classic over the next couple of days will be well spent. Don't let the fact that Opeth is a metal band turn you off if you're not a metal fan. Don't let the fact that this is the album on which Opeth really went non-metal turn you off if you are a metal fan. Any way you slice it, just revisit this classic as a favour to me, OK?

The Song of Frigg's Day: Opeth - Ghost of Perdition

     Now that I've finally gotten around to posting the song I had prepared for yesterday, we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Song of the Day: Opeth - The Grand Conjuration

     They should make "I survived Ikea" T-shirts. They really should. And when you get one, it should come with a copy of any Opeth album.