Opeth – Watershed

Posted by abortion on July 17th, 2008 filed in Progressive Metal

Opeth at Myspace

Okay, I know this is a horrendously boring album to review since everyone loves Opeth and probably already knows if they like their newest release, ‘Watershed’, or not. But I don’t, since I’ve avoided listening to it properly until just now.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Opeth. And I’m not one of those elitist Opeth fans who thinks that everything they released after ‘Still Life’ sucks, either. They sucked way before that (ho ho). It’s jut that ‘Ghost Reveries’ really disappointed me. It was too far removed from the Opeth I love. It was too proggy and it was too mellow and it was too crazy and it wasn’t grim at all. Mellotrons? Tribal drums? Fuck off.

Right, yeah, Watershed. What can I say? It’s more of the same, really. Lame. I can’t say I was really expecting them to drop the prog rock nonsense and kick Per out of the band, although it would’ve been nice.

It’s really hard writing a review like this, even when you’re like me and barely even mention the music. On the one hand, I’m glad that Mikael and co. have found commercial success and it’s good that they’re writing music they like. But on the other hand, what about the music I like? Opeth have built up a massive fanbase over the years, albeit mostly the last five, but there’s still some of us who loved Opeth when they were a blackened doomy progressive death metal band.

So here’s my suggestion. Let’s get the band members from Opeth’s glory years together – Peter Lindgren, Anders Nordin, and Johan DeFarfalla – and make a new band called ‘Oldpeth’, with Corpsegrinder on vocals or something. And they can write some awesome blackened doomy progressive death metal, and then I can be happy again, and life can continue to be worth living.

Until that day, I’m going to continue pretending Opeth split up in 2004. Who’s with me?