# Opeth - Michael says Extreme Metal is Dull.



## PTI (Mar 18, 2013)

Interesting interview from Michael, I cant help but agree with him regarding a lot of the new age Extreme metal bands, its getting very tired to these ears especially with the plastic sounding recordings being churned out daily. He makes some funny comments re: Metallica too. 

It also reminds me of some recent comments from the Carcass camp. Does it seem that the 'guitar riff' has been replaced with low end rhythmical strumming???


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## ttiwguitar (Mar 18, 2013)

He's right.


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## Sunyata (Mar 18, 2013)

Well, seeing how much experience he had when making the Heritage album, he should be more than qualified to recognize dull music...


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## UnderTheSign (Mar 18, 2013)

Funny coming from a guy in a dull band


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## PTI (Mar 18, 2013)

It made me think about production too. We have all lived through the Andy Sneap age of getting pure clarity on metal recordings. Not to mention the loudness war. Does this play a part in the whole "I think new extreme metal is dull" ?


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## wankerness (Mar 18, 2013)

Sunyata said:


> Well, seeing how much experience he had when making the Heritage album, he should be more than qualified to recognize dull music...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4ewZELBKwQ#t=0m25s


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## wankerness (Mar 18, 2013)

PTI said:


> It made me think about production too. We have all lived through the Andy Sneap age of getting pure clarity on metal recordings. Not to mention the loudness war. Does this play a part in the whole "I think new extreme metal is dull" ?



I doubt it. I've never heard shitty music get better when the production gets muddier.


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## PTI (Mar 18, 2013)

Ha ha that is very true.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Mar 18, 2013)

Sunyata said:


> Well, seeing how much experience he had when making the Heritage album, he should be more than qualified to recognize dull music...



Bingo.


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## loktide (Mar 18, 2013)

i think he's right. still, i don't see anything wrong with liking 'dull'


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## oompa (Mar 18, 2013)

I think one of the biggest reasons is the lack of dynamics in recording and mix/mas. You know, dat soundwall.

On top of that metal suffers from it becoming popular with the pop-metal bands following Korn. All that stuff just moves money and attention from talent to money-making just like any other franchise.

Personally I believe the internet and sharing will handle it in the long run though, but nvm that, Mikael is funny when he thinks metal is dull and makes the dullest album ever though  I think he has gone into a phase of life or something where I'm not really on thje same.. page as him. Could also blame Steven Wilson and his influences through their friendship if he wasn't such a sexy beast in PPT/Damnation


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## PTI (Mar 18, 2013)

anyone recommend any good "Dull" extreme metal?


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## TIBrent (Mar 18, 2013)

Buys a bunch of 70s German Prog vinyls...decides this is the way to go & much more interesting than his older records, releases one of the dullest/most uneventful records of all time...condemns others for not tarnishing their careers as well. 
hmm...Maybe for the next Opeth record they should bring in Bob Rock & his killer 'St. Anger' snare sound  Mind blowing.


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## PTI (Mar 18, 2013)

I suppose his reasoning is that he dosent want to release the same album over and over. Cant blame him for that as I thought Watershed was worse than Heritage. It was like an album of B-sides from Ghost Reveries.


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## wankerness (Mar 18, 2013)

oompa said:


> I think one of the biggest reasons is the lack of dynamics in recording and mix/mas. You know, dat soundwall.
> 
> On top of that metal suffers from it becoming popular with the pop-metal bands following Korn. All that stuff just moves money and attention from talent to money-making just like any other franchise.
> 
> Personally I believe the internet and sharing will handle it in the long run though, but nvm that, Mikael is funny when he thinks metal is dull and makes the dullest album ever though  I think he has gone into a phase of life or something where I'm not really on thje same.. page as him. Could also blame Steven Wilson and his influences through their friendship if he wasn't such a sexy beast in PPT/Damnation



Could also just blame the fact he's getting old and mellowing out as many people are apt to do!


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## PTI (Mar 18, 2013)

wankerness said:


> Could also just blame the fact he's getting old and mellowing out as many people are apt to do!



And whats that say about Kerry King? ha ha


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## xethicx (Mar 18, 2013)

opeth hasnt done anything good in a decade... nothing even sort of good. he should shut up and make better music


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## Hipster Holocaust (Mar 18, 2013)

UnderTheSign said:


> Funny coming from a guy in a dull band



Not when he was in Bloodbath.


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## wankerness (Mar 18, 2013)

PTI said:


> And whats that say about Kerry King? ha ha



Yeah, there are exceptions here and there like Slayer and Meshuggah and Megadeth or w/e but it's a general rule.


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## PTI (Mar 18, 2013)

I agree, I was taking the p**** I think Kerry King is a clown.


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## datalore (Mar 18, 2013)

PTI said:


> Interesting interview from Michael, I cant help but agree with him regarding a lot of the new age Extreme metal bands, its getting very tired to these ears especially with the plastic sounding recordings being churned out daily.



A lot of music can be pretty dull, in any genre, especially when the genre has been around long enough for a lot of similar-sounding bands to exist. Extreme metal is no exception. For me, music has always been about artists, not genres.


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## Esp Griffyn (Mar 18, 2013)

Sounds like the embittered ramblings of a man who hasn't put together a good song in the last decade or longer, seriously, he is like a spoilt child.

A progression of his thought:

"I'm bored with extreme metal, let's make prog rock."

"Oh no the fans hate this self-indulgent shit!"

"You're all stupid, the music you like is dull!"


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## UnderTheSign (Mar 18, 2013)

Hipster Holocaust said:


> Not when he was in Bloodbath.


Honestly, Bloodbath was just a "tribute to Swedish OSDM" at the time the Stockholm sound was totally cool again.


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## PTI (Mar 18, 2013)

datalore said:


> A lot of music can be pretty dull, in any genre, especially when the genre has been around long enough for a lot of similar-sounding bands to exist. Extreme metal is no exception. For me, music has always been about artists, not genres.



That's a good way at looking at it I suppose. Its interesting to hear Michael making comments about a genre that he is / was kind of part of . 

I hate genres and categories. They seem necessary for some people though, as some people always need to compare bands rather than just like them.


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## RagtimeDandy (Mar 18, 2013)

Well Snoritage was pretty dull in it's own right. That sound is long dead and museum-i-fied. Let the 1970's stay in the 70s, no need to beat the remaining, half decomposed femur of a dead horse. I think if Mikael's sick of metal he should keep playing whatever he makes, but he really shouldn't call it metal or expect metal fans to like it. He's starting to sound like a grumpy old man sick of the young kids and their damn music.


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## Xaios (Mar 18, 2013)

xethicx said:


> opeth hasnt done anything good in a decade... nothing even sort of good. he should shut up and make better music



Quiet you, Ghost Reveries was freaking awesome. 


...but yeah, Watershed was mediocre, and Heritage was just WTF.


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## Xiphos68 (Mar 18, 2013)

Quite honestly... I was really, really looking forward to what is now _Heritage._

I thought he was going to make an old-school prog album (Deep Purple, Rainbow Style) but with a heavy modern production. But I was wrong...


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## Fiction (Mar 18, 2013)

I like heritage



Although its been done better long before


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## Xaios (Mar 18, 2013)

Xiphos68 said:


> Quite honestly... I was really, really looking forward to what is now _Heritage._
> 
> I thought he was going to make an old-school prog album (Deep Purple, Rainbow Style) but with a heavy modern production. But I was wrong...



See, I might've been able to get behind that. But instead, the guitars sound like they're being played through a John Deere...


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## JEngelking (Mar 18, 2013)

Fiction said:


> I like heritage
> 
> 
> 
> Although its been done better long before



Pretty much this.

I like everything Opeth has done.


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## Demiurge (Mar 18, 2013)

I agree with the sentiment, but perhaps in a different way. 

It's no way an indictment against the music itself, but the more time spent listening to heavy music, it seems harder and harder to get blown away by heaviness. I could flip through a playlist that 15 years ago would have evinced, "holy shit- this is crazy!" and now would get, "eh... it's alright". Yes, at some point it's possible to get numb to extremity, I believe. At that point, then it's imperative to find something else that can be exciting.


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## xethicx (Mar 18, 2013)

Sometimes bands lose their mojo and ability to make good music and out of frustration they lash out at the bands making good music. 

The joke of it is, Opeth doesnt even play the old stuff anymore. Last time I saw them, they played nothing but their new album and new stuff, I left after 4 songs because I didnt bring tea and a sleeping bag to lay on like I should have just to make a point. I saw the setlist and I knew the night was going to put me to sleep. 

I think he's been hanging out with Steven Wilson too much.


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## Doug N (Mar 18, 2013)

xethicx said:


> I think he's been hanging out with Steven Wilson too much.


 
I think there is no question about this, and it's hurting both Opeth and Porcupine Tree. The new Steven Wilson is killer, but PT and Opeth not so much.


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## wilch (Mar 18, 2013)

I loved Heritage. You young'uns...bah.


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## Mprinsje (Mar 18, 2013)

he's not looking in the right places.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Mar 18, 2013)

Wait, Opeth didn't break up after Damnation/Deliverance?

I guess that was just in my dreams...


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## TIBrent (Mar 18, 2013)

To me Watershed sort of begins in & ends on the first track. I mean, it's not a bad record by any means, just sort of easy to get lost in & not in the best of ways. But the first time I put on that record & heard 'Coil', I thought okay this could be pretty cool, I dig this song, hope the rest of the record is...but then it just sort of came & went & that was that.


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## Danukenator (Mar 18, 2013)

I saw them in concert and the order went Ghost, Opeth (Heritage stuff), Mastodon. Take a wild guess which band had the least stage presence! 

I also love the humorous nature of such general sweeping statements. They sound like youtube comments.


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## ScrotieMcBoogerballs (Mar 18, 2013)

Watershed's my favorite Opeth record. I think once you cut out Burden, it flows perfectly.

Also, dat Hessian Peel.


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## JohnIce (Mar 18, 2013)

Whether he's throwing stones in glass houses or not (I don't have an opinion on Opeth as I never really got into their catalogue), I agree with his points. Subjectively, of course. As both a metal musician and a recording engineer I too find a lot of modern metal boring because the human element is edited out and the "songwriting" process is reduced to stacking riffs in a DAW. And now that everyone is using home studios, they all use the same plugins and presets, look up the same settings in the same forums and in the end there's less personality among new bands I find.

Again, I'm not saying anyone else's taste is wrong, just my opinion.


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## wankerness (Mar 18, 2013)

ScrotieMcBoogerballs said:


> Watershed's my favorite Opeth record. I think once you cut out Burden, it flows perfectly.
> 
> Also, dat Hessian Peel.



That record totally lost me somehow, Hessian Peel was the only song I really liked and even it doesn't stack up to previous albums (well, besides Deliverance/Damnation). Whenever I go back and attempt to listen to it I like bits and pieces of it but it sort of goes in one ear and out the other. Not sure what the story is, maybe I just got burnedout on them. I listened to Morningrise, MAYH, Still Life, BWP and Ghost Reveries probably a hundred times each, at least.  Heritage is sort of the same way, I know I liked bits and pieces of songs but it seemed to have a lot of empty space. I'll reexamine it someday.


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## Sofos (Mar 18, 2013)

RagtimeDandy said:


> He's starting to sound like a grumpy old man sick of the young kids and their damn music.



Nah, he's just sick of the young kids standing on his lawn


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## Cnev (Mar 18, 2013)

Watershed was a weird album for me. If that album had been my introduction to them years ago, I guarantee I would have fallen in love with it, just like I did Still Life. But for some reason, at that point in their career and after listening to how the post-Still Life Opeth had evolved, Watershed just sounded like the end of an era to me. It was a good album in it's own right, but I just felt like something had to change. I really wasn't interested in hearing another album of that style, really.

I still feel like Heritage would have worked much better as a solo album or a different project altogether. I think it would have been received a bit better and given how open Akerfeldt is about his love for old, obscure prog rock it wouldn't have felt so alien and out of context like it does alongside the rest of Opeth's catalog. But, oh well. I'm glad they decided to do something different and I think it's a fairly interesting album, but I don't know what to think of it in regard to Opeth. It honestly makes me even more interested to hear what comes next from them.


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## Nile (Mar 18, 2013)

ScrotieMcBoogerballs said:


> Watershed's my favorite Opeth record. I think once you cut out Burden, it flows perfectly.
> 
> Also, dat Hessian Peel.



You saying Burden is bad?


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## Adam Of Angels (Mar 18, 2013)

I have yet to even listen to "Heritage" in full yet, and Opeth is in my top 3 favorite bands list.

While I do like "Watershed", "Ghost Reveries" is one of the best metal recordings ever, and although that's just my opinion, I can't fathom anybody hating it and liking their older stuff.


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## pink freud (Mar 18, 2013)

I can agree with his statement. When you take out dynamics in music, it gets dull. 50 minutes of chuggitywheedlyblargablargabwow is equally as dull as listening to Enya do covers of the sounds of running feathers over velvet.


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## Datura (Mar 18, 2013)

I don't know how such a goober created the amazing albums Orchid and Morningrise, must have been a fluke.


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## ilyti (Mar 18, 2013)

This thread..


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## Watty (Mar 18, 2013)

ScrotieMcBoogerballs said:


> Watershed's my favorite Opeth record. I think once you cut out Burden, it flows perfectly.



Burden is one of my favorites in their catalog, so I'll have to respectfully disagree. Unless you're simply talking about it's place in the flow of the record and not it's overall brilliance.

I have to admit that I lost a bit of respect for him with these comments. I mean, I totally get where he's coming from with the metal being stale side of things as there are a ton of bands that don't really try to do anything real these days. However, him believing that he's doing something "unique" and "edgy" (or however he put it) is bullshit given that he's just rehashing the 70's and 80's in his own way. Is there anything wrong with that? No. Is it still Opeth? Yes. Is it really innovative? No.

Regardless of my feeling towards their new direction, I still feel like it's the pot calling the kettle black insofar as creativity is concerned.


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## Xiphos68 (Mar 18, 2013)

SoldiersOfFilth said:


> Nah, he's just sick of the young kids standing on his lawn





I couldn't help myself...


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## linchpin (Mar 18, 2013)

Sounding like a 70s band is absolutely fine with me as long as that band was around in the 70s... pretending on the other hand is just so unimaginative in a time when innovation is very much needed.
I must admit, it bothers me a bit when the word "Vintage" is applied to a fairly modern band...


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## Ibanezsam4 (Mar 18, 2013)

Doug N said:


> I think there is no question about this, and it's hurting both Opeth and Porcupine Tree. The new Steven Wilson is killer, but PT and Opeth not so much.



Porcupine Tree as of right now does not exist. Steven is putting it on hold because the sound of Porcupine Tree is too limiting and he wants to open up. can't blame him really. As with Opeth, Im okay with Heritage as i didn't think the formula for an Opeth song could be used anymore. 

but his points are valid from a production and writing standpoint. think about it, the modern metal scene is obsessed with a particular production sound without the cost and skill associated with it. 
frankly it sucks pretty hard right now. most bands don't understand good songwriting can trump production value, however the scene right rewards bands with Facebook hits if they have a loud-ass sounding mix. people got pissed at Protest the Hero for being greedy when recording tech is so cheap now... no, they want to make an awesome sounding record unlike the rest of shitty digitized metal world. 
but back to songwriting. the straight brutality has lost me in the sense i cannot play most modern extreme metal records straight through. i always have to listen to one or two songs and get my fill. there's no balance, there's no artistry. just a whole bunch of derivative mimicry that honestly is depressing. one of the key reasons Gojira is finally blowing up right now is that they have mastered dynamics and have good song structure. the instruments today are loud as fuck, the drums have been moved to be on the literal-fucking beat, and any human interaction in the studio is lost. its been artificially perfected, and i hate to break to anyone who is a fan of this but it is really superficial sounding. metal is becoming homogeneous and lacking in character, which only hurts the scene in the long run as it becomes THAT much harder to break away from the pack and to make an impact.


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## Opion (Mar 18, 2013)

ITT: Opinions

Personally, I can understand people's sentiments regarding the band's direction. People don't like change. Especially modern metal fans. But I think Mikael's getting so much flak for this because he just doesn't give a shit - and a lot of bands, like Periphery, are another example of this. They write music for themselves and not for the fans. Listen to Slayer if you want a band that stays loyal to their fans...oh, wait...

That said, I personally think Heritage was a great record, but it's definitely not my favorite. People expect a band to come out with a release every year that tops the previous - well, to some extent I can agree with that, but when you're Opeth and you've been a band for about 30 years and you've already put out some of the greatest records in modern metal, it gets pretty hard to do so. But I also feel that at some point, it becomes unnecessary - Opeth has laid the groundwork for countless other bands, why at this point try to keep up with the trends? It's a natural process for any band that's been around this long to eventually just do what they feel like doing.

I wish more metal fans were accepting of these basic facts. Kudos to Mike for cutting the bullshit.


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## ScrotieMcBoogerballs (Mar 18, 2013)

Watty said:


> Burden is one of my favorites in their catalog, so I'll have to respectfully disagree. Unless you're simply talking about it's place in the flow of the record and not it's overall brilliance.



Don't get me wrong, I dig the song. That was one of the main selling points of the album for me at first but I think as an album, it's not in the right spot and ruins the flow of the album for me.


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## flaik (Mar 18, 2013)

Ibanezsam4 said:


> Porcupine Tree as of right now does not exist. Steven is putting it on hold because the sound of Porcupine Tree is too limiting and he wants to open up. can't blame him really. As with Opeth, Im okay with Heritage as i didn't think the formula for an Opeth song could be used anymore.
> 
> but his points are valid from a production and writing standpoint. think about it, the modern metal scene is obsessed with a particular production sound without the cost and skill associated with it.
> frankly it sucks pretty hard right now. most bands don't understand good songwriting can trump production value, however the scene right rewards bands with Facebook hits if they have a loud-ass sounding mix. people got pissed at Protest the Hero for being greedy when recording tech is so cheap now... no, they want to make an awesome sounding record unlike the rest of shitty digitized metal world.
> but back to songwriting. the straight brutality has lost me in the sense i cannot play most modern extreme metal records straight through. i always have to listen to one or two songs and get my fill. there's no balance, there's no artistry. just a whole bunch of derivative mimicry that honestly is depressing. one of the key reasons Gojira is finally blowing up right now is that they have mastered dynamics and have good song structure. the instruments today are loud as fuck, the drums have been moved to be on the literal-fucking beat, and any human interaction in the studio is lost. its been artificially perfected, and i hate to break to anyone who is a fan of this but it is really superficial sounding. metal is becoming homogeneous and lacking in character, which only hurts the scene in the long run as it becomes THAT much harder to break away from the pack and to make an impact.



I know where you're coming from but honestly I think recently (past 5 years ish) there has been some really awesome music put out in metal. It certainely should not be called the "shitty digitized metal world". 

It's definately easy to think like that though with the home laptop producer thing going on. (which I think is a good thing for the growth of creativity in music, just not for "professional" recordings) I definately agree that there are some not so super bands with some ok loud sounding mixes that get a bit to much recognition for it via facebook and such. 

but hey, for me metal doesn't always have to be music I shit my pants over for the beatiful melodies or song writing. Alot times even bigger bands are just some guys with good vibes getting together to jam on some good music to bang their heads to. That's what it's all about.


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## xethicx (Mar 18, 2013)

wilch said:


> I loved Heritage. You young'uns...bah.



Im 35, I didnt like it because it didnt sound like Opeth, it sounded like Opeth light, now with aspartame. It had no balls, nothing memorable. 

When I heard deliverance and damnation, my jaw hit the floor and I had those albums in my rotation for like a couple years. There wasnt a weak song on either record. It was their masterpiece and like many other bands, after the masterpiece it's tough to live up to it. Opeth hasnt lived up to it and also they for some reason decide to tuck that terrific material away on tour for some stupid reason. 

I know there's kids and metal fans in general that think Opeth should just growl and play heavy all the time, I am not one of those people. However I do wish they would go back to playing mindblowing music.


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## Ibanezsam4 (Mar 18, 2013)

flaik said:


> I know where you're coming from but honestly I think recently (past 5 years ish) there has been some really awesome music put out in metal. It certainely should not be called the "shitty digitized metal world".
> 
> It's definately easy to think like that though with the home laptop producer thing going on. (which I think is a good thing for the growth of creativity in music, just not for "professional" recordings) I definately agree that there are some not so super bands with some ok loud sounding mixes that get a bit to much recognition for it via facebook and such.
> 
> but hey, for me metal doesn't always have to be music I shit my pants over for the beatiful melodies or song writing. Alot times even bigger bands are just some guys with good vibes getting together to jam on some good music to bang their heads to. That's what it's all about.



oh sir if you only knew the extent of my rage  the "digital" sound goes far beyond the recording methods, but unfortunately extends to albums being mixed specifically for low quality MP3 files. i rip my CDs to stupidly large file sizes and more recently starting getting into vinyl just so i could hear the least amount of dynamic compression on the mix. it has revealed at least to my hears something really disturbing... a lot of metal mixes blow... more to the point the more modern sounds realllllllly blow when you hear it in a quality higher than the 320kbs per second playback rate of most mixes. 

in a nutshell when i refer to "digital" music i am talking about the convenience music which is made specifically to be played on ear buds and not reflect the sound of the band


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## Stealthdjentstic (Mar 18, 2013)

Watershed and Heritage were both kind of bad, they lacked that dark atmosphere the other opeth stuff had.

I'm not sure where he gets off calling extreme metal bands boring when Heritage is just a bunch of stolen Camel/Yes/Rush riffs anyways


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## pink freud (Mar 18, 2013)

Ibanezsam4 said:


> Porcupine Tree as of right now does not exist. Steven is putting it on hold because the sound of Porcupine Tree is too limiting and he wants to open up.



Such bullshit on his part. Porcupine Tree is whatever he wants it to be. If he wanted to make Metanoia prt II he could if he wanted to.


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## Discoqueen (Mar 18, 2013)

I used to beguile Steven Wilson for corrupting Mikael and bringing about the death of a 'metal god'. Now after a little cooling off and re-listens. I like 75 percent of the album. 'The Devil's Orchard' is tight as shit and definitely an Opeth song. The thing they kept around... those riffs with the long second halves that sound cool... those really fluid ones? There are a bunch of them on the album so I am content.

"Feel the pain, in your brain... insane."


Can't ever un-hear.


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## flaik (Mar 18, 2013)

Ibanezsam4 said:


> oh sir if you only knew the extent of my rage  the "digital" sound goes far beyond the recording methods, but unfortunately extends to albums being mixed specifically for low quality MP3 files. i rip my CDs to stupidly large file sizes and more recently starting getting into vinyl just so i could hear the least amount of dynamic compression on the mix. it has revealed at least to my hears something really disturbing... a lot of metal mixes blow... more to the point the more modern sounds realllllllly blow when you hear it in a quality higher than the 320kbs per second playback rate of most mixes.
> 
> in a nutshell when i refer to "digital" music i am talking about the convenience music which is made specifically to be played on ear buds and not reflect the sound of the band



If I had that that much rage I would just quit metal  not saying you should and not that you would care if I thought you should but anyway I get your point. 

Not everyone is elite enough, like us sevenstringers are of course, to care about music with super sick production only suited for a hifi system. I dont see metal music making any huge leaps in that sense anytime soon. most people just want that fun convenience music, like you said


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## Xaios (Mar 19, 2013)

Steven Wilson certainly didn't turn Mikael away from "the true path." After all, he also has production credits on Blackwater Park, Damnation and Deliverance.


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## wankerness (Mar 19, 2013)

Xaios said:


> Steven Wilson certainly didn't turn Mikael away from "the true path." After all, he also has production credits on Blackwater Park, Damnation and Deliverance.



REAL opeth fans hate everything they did after MOrningrise FYI


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## wankerness (Mar 19, 2013)

Cnev said:


> Watershed was a weird album for me. If that album had been my introduction to them years ago, I guarantee I would have fallen in love with it, just like I did Still Life. But for some reason, at that point in their career and after listening to how the post-Still Life Opeth had evolved, Watershed just sounded like the end of an era to me. It was a good album in it's own right, but I just felt like something had to change. I really wasn't interested in hearing another album of that style, really.
> 
> I still feel like Heritage would have worked much better as a solo album or a different project altogether. I think it would have been received a bit better and given how open Akerfeldt is about his love for old, obscure prog rock it wouldn't have felt so alien and out of context like it does alongside the rest of Opeth's catalog. But, oh well. I'm glad they decided to do something different and I think it's a fairly interesting album, but I don't know what to think of it in regard to Opeth. It honestly makes me even more interested to hear what comes next from them.



Well said to all. I probably would have loved Watershed if I hadn't already been a fan for several years. I didn't like Heritage but it didn't make me any less interested to hear what comes next, I figure it will be a much more assured version of what they tried there and probably be a lot better.


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## Korbain (Mar 19, 2013)

xethicx said:


> The joke of it is, Opeth doesnt even play the old stuff anymore. Last time I saw them, they played nothing but their new album and new stuff, I left after 4 songs because I didnt bring tea and a sleeping bag to lay on like I should have just to make a point. I saw the setlist and I knew the night was going to put me to sleep.



I saw them on friday and they played plenty of old/older stuff. Only played 2 heritage songs, the devils orchid and haxprocess. 

Good on him for wanting to do something different and not throwing out the same shit over and over. The bands been around for like 20 years, as a musician you try pumping out the same sorta shit over and over and see how bored you get...(though i can see the debate in him maybe starting a different band for it, heritage still had that opeth vibe in it to me though)

I like all their albums for being different and evolving, and i think the heritage stuff live is probably some of their best  There is some amazing song writing in heritage that no one seems to hear/care for though  

Each to their own i guess. Yah like it or you don't lol Don't agree with they haven't released anything good in like 10 years though, there is no denying they are a pretty talented band that write some cool songs lol


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## Yo_Wattup (Mar 19, 2013)

xethicx said:


> The joke of it is, Opeth doesnt even play the old stuff anymore. Last time I saw them, they played nothing but their new album and new stuff, I left after 4 songs because I didnt bring tea and a sleeping bag to lay on like I should have just to make a point. I saw the setlist and I knew the night was going to put me to sleep.



I saw them on Saturday, their setlist:

The Devil's Orchard 
Ghost of Perdition 
White Cluster 
Hope Leaves 
Atonement 
Deliverance 
Hessian Peel 
Häxprocess 
Demon of the Fall 
(New acoustic/folk version)
Reverie/Harlequin Forest 

Encore:
Blackwater Park 



It was one of the best shows I've ever been to.

Deliverance...


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## ascl (Mar 19, 2013)

Korbain said:


> I saw them on friday and they played plenty of old/older stuff. Only played 2 heritage songs, the devils orchid and haxprocess.


Was a great show! I thought they played a good mix of new/old songs.


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## Andromalia (Mar 19, 2013)

Well, I don't like modern production standards much. Andy Sneap succeeded in making even Megadeth sound generic...
Think that's why stuff like scandinavian bands get more success now. the overloud polished metal just becomes boring with no personality. 
I can identify a new song from a good many bands at first hearing, now send me one of those modern guys and I'm utterly unable to say if that new song has been done by this or that guy/band. They all write the same songs and sound the same, their singers included.

I'm not much into Opeth, but the last festival I saw them in in summer 2012 was just a great show.


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## Dayn (Mar 19, 2013)

I'd have to agree with him somewhat. When I look at the music I like, I'm tempted to say, 'You're wrong!'. But my favourite metal music actually has dynamics. I've heard a lot of bands, and I've ignored them for that very reason: it's a wall of sound. So my own view is incredibly tailored. Everything dull, I forget about.

Just to add, I think The Lotus Eater is the perfect song. That descent into madness halfway through is the most exquisite thing I've ever heard in any song. I'd really like to check out Heritage... when I get the money.


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## ridner (Mar 19, 2013)

all I hope is that the next Opeth record is more exciting to listen to.


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## Korbain (Mar 19, 2013)

ascl said:


> Was a great show! I thought they played a good mix of new/old songs.



Yeah for sure, i know a lot people weren't happy with their set lists lately for being soft, so they've spiced it up. Was indeed a great mix of old and new.

Hessian Peel was amazing live, actually it all was amazing lol Best band live for me, no doubt


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## cronux (Mar 19, 2013)

PTI said:


> Does it seem that the 'guitar riff' has been replaced with low end rhythmical strumming???



I would say that as time passes by more and more metalheads go about the sound of the record oppose to the musical content of the record. to me a good riff is a riff that sounds awesome *in any tuning using any guitar*. the value of extreme music was always in the musicianship behind it and I wouldn't go so far as to say that there's no musicianship in todays new extreme metal bands but I would say that because of the advances in musical technology a lot of bands cut corners into achieving that "extreme" factor. 

 

being dubbed "dull" is just the product of musicians not taking the time to perfect their craft. that whole "record slowly then speed it up" process is just one of the things that I'm talking about. playing your instrument more makes you capable of making more original music, being in your comfort zone at any given moment of the day and being "on par" with what you can and can't do with your instrument.


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## Joose (Mar 19, 2013)

Extreme metal IS dull, most of the time.




But so was Opeth's most recent release.


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## Adam Of Angels (Mar 19, 2013)

Yo_Wattup said:


> I saw them on Saturday, their setlist:
> 
> The Devil's Orchard
> Ghost of Perdition
> ...



That's a phenomenal setlist


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## protest (Mar 19, 2013)

I agree. 

Death is one of my all time favorite bands, but I generally dislike death metal, or at least the stereotypical growl + blast beat type because it's monotonous. The same thing goes for Protest the Hero, a band that I love. Their music is crazy, but its all crazy all the time. You need a break from that to make those amazing parts standout. If not it all becomes a blur. I'm hoping their next album is like Dillinger's last one, where they incorporate simpler passages, and slower songs to add some diversity.

I also think that as you get older your listening library increases to the point that it's hard for things that impress you. I find myself being more impressed with something like Adele's voice rather than some crazy sweep picking some dude did on youtube. That's because I've been seeing/hearing that for years, whereas I never gave other forms of music as much attention as metal.

I find it really hard to find new metal bands that I like. It makes me feel old, but I think its because I've heard so much of it that its hard to find new things that stand out from what I've already been listening too.


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## wankerness (Mar 19, 2013)

cronux said:


> I would say that as time passes by more and more metalheads go about the sound of the record oppose to the musical content of the record. to me a good riff is a riff that sounds awesome *in any tuning using any guitar*. the value of extreme music was always in the musicianship behind it and I wouldn't go so far as to say that there's no musicianship in todays new extreme metal bands but I would say that because of the advances in musical technology a lot of bands cut corners into achieving that "extreme" factor.



There's a lot of truth in this, especially the bolded part. It reminds me of some old interview with Mikael, I think it may have been on the Lamentations DVD, where he said he composed everything on an acoustic guitar, cause if it sounded heavy on there it would sound amazing with a whole band and distortion. I think that's why so much of their stuff had such memorable and awesome riffs and they sounded really heavy without ever going below Drop D tuning. He really made the effort to come up with good riffs instead of just chugging away and depending on the production to make it BADASS. I think Opeth is the most fun band to play riffs by.


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## Ibanezsam4 (Mar 19, 2013)

pink freud said:


> Such bullshit on his part. Porcupine Tree is whatever he wants it to be. If he wanted to make Metanoia prt II he could if he wanted to.



not really if you think about it. this thread demonstrates that fans have very particular expectations as to what the band should sound like. if you examine Steven's whole career you see he has very specific projects for very specific sounds. Pick up a Porcupine Tree and you expect a progressive acoustic pop/rock record, experimentation is there, bu there is certainly a Porcupine Tree sound throughout the whole discography. He doesn't want to make something that differs from this sound, he wants to make his solo stuff which is pretty much an amalgamation of all his work sprinkled throughout much more experimental pieces.


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## VBCheeseGrater (Mar 19, 2013)

wankerness said:


> REAL opeth fans hate everything they did after MOrningrise FYI



 thats when it started getting good! Morningrise does have a cool vibe to it. Orchid is pretty lousy to me. Still life is where some REALLY good music was spewed forth. The only album that comes close to that is Ghost Reveries - Watershed i dig quite a bit - the second song is about as heavy as they have ever done, just beastly 

Heritage? It has some nice moments but it's way too fragmented. Just not up to snuff quality-wise as what i'm used to from opeth.


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## wankerness (Mar 19, 2013)

It was really popular for a few years to say everything after either Morningrise or MAYH was terrible and that Orchid/Morningrise were the best. It's been so many years that they've been doing the MAYH thing though that I never see this opinion anymore, all those people have been ignoring them for a decade now


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## Krullnar (Mar 19, 2013)

When I saw Opeth in '05, he took time to explain what a death metal drum beat was and asked the drummer to play a death metal drum beat for the crowd. I don't think he's been into it for a long time.


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## DLG (Mar 19, 2013)

yeah, people need to remember that Opeth has been playing since the early 90s and that Mikael is almost 40. 

If you grew up on 90s death metal you would think that today's plastic sounding deathcore is lame too. 

I don't care for the last few Opeth albums, but I understand where he's coming from. They pretty much made no money before signing to Roadrunner. Blackwater Park was critically acclaimed but it still didn't make them much money, they didn't start headlining tours until Deliverance/Damnation in the US. 

I can't blame Mikael for being fatigued from metal and realizing that he's finally in the position where he has devoted fans who will buy his records no matter what, and he's taking advantage of that by doing what feels good to him currently, which is paying homage to 70s prog rock. 

Like I said, I find Heritage to be a boring turd, but I understand where it's coming from.


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## Yo_Wattup (Mar 19, 2013)

protest said:


> I also think that as you get older your listening library increases to the point that it's hard for things that impress you. I find myself being more impressed with something like Adele's voice rather than some crazy sweep picking some dude did on youtube. That's because I've been seeing/hearing that for years, whereas I never gave other forms of music as much attention as metal.
> 
> I find it really hard to find new metal bands that I like. It makes me feel old, but I think its because I've heard so much of it that its hard to find new things that stand out from what I've already been listening too.



I 100% agree. If I were to listen to Slayer now, after hearing so much, I'd be like meeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhh... but since they were the first metal band I listened to, and the ones to get me into metal, they will always be my favourite band. Some people feel the same way about Limp Bizkit, or SOAD for example.

It's strange, because I try to listen to bands like Sylosis, which I'm sure are quite a bit more interesting to some people than Slayer, but it just sounds like the next modern, polished, overproduced sounding band...  

That's why it takes just about semi-revolutionary bands like Opeth, Corelia, or Periphery etc to impress me 

At least I'm still not quite old enough to be saying "music ain't what it used to be son", there's heaps of great heavy music around.


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## tomcat ha (Mar 19, 2013)

Listening to this interview actually makes me want to talk with Mikael.
Also listening to metal just because its brutal or heavy is total poseur behaviour really.
I did not like heritage not because it lacked growling or whatever. Heck all ive heard of mikael recently growling wise was pretty bad.
I like 70s prog rock but all the bands back then made much better stuff.
Opeth has been on a decline ever since Opeth started moving away from the classical roots and moved to a more prog rock sound.


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## wankerness (Mar 19, 2013)

Classical Roots? What do you mean? To my ears they've always had heavy prog rock influence (ex Epilogue on MAYH). Only thing I can think of was that inexplicable piano interlude on Orchid that was all their drummer at that time. They're getting more prog rock and less metal now but I'm wondering where classical comes into this.


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## AmishRefugee (Mar 19, 2013)

wankerness said:


> Classical Roots? What do you mean? To my ears they've always had heavy prog rock influence (ex Epilogue on MAYH). Only thing I can think of was that inexplicable piano interlude on Orchid that was all their drummer at that time. They're getting more prog rock and less metal now but I'm wondering where classical comes into this.



Classical is as big a part of Prog as blues is. Most of the members of Genesis and Yes were trained in classical music, and Robert Fripp of King Crimson rejected blues entirely in favor of a more contemporary classical view of music, applied to rock instrumentation.

Also, I, for one, rather enjoyed Heritage, since I didn't go into it expecting another Still Life, or whatever. That being said, I still liked Watershed more than Heritage. Applying a lot of prog ideals and experimentation to death metal is something I think Mikael is quite good at.


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## wankerness (Mar 19, 2013)

I went into it expecting something cool and riffy but with lots of weird keyboards like Damnation crossed with Watershed or something. Instead I got 2/3 of a decent album and 1/3 ambient noises. :O


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## Krucifixtion (Mar 20, 2013)

Mikael has always been into older Prog stuff. Heritage is the kind of album he has always wanted to do. I do personally like it better than Watershed. I just couldn't get into that album much, but I respect what they do on Heritage. The sad part to me about Opeth is that they are hardly Opeth anymore. It's pretty much Akerfeldt to me at this point. 

Opeth has always been a pretty experimental band. It's what made them who they are. To rip on them doing what they want to do musically now is probably no different then what people said to them many years ago. Happens to all bands that get tired of playing the same shit over and over. 

The same thing happens to so many genre's of music where a few really innovative bands come along and then the market gets too flooded with the same sound and production until people get sick of it and it shifts to something else that is slightly different and new sounding. I do agree that these days people are starting to get way too much into production instead of just simply writing and and being a good band that can actually pull it off live. Guess it's just the way things are going with technology.


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## Korbain (Mar 20, 2013)

wankerness said:


> I went into it expecting something cool and riffy but with lots of weird keyboards like Damnation crossed with Watershed or something. Instead I got 2/3 of a decent album and 1/3 ambient noises. :O



haha there was a lot of keyboard/piano ambient pieces in the songs. i found it was a more of an album that let each instrument have its moments to shine through on its own instead of just the guitars (even though everyone is the band in pretty damn talented even when they are all going nuts together).

That solo at the end of haxprocess is amazing, the bass flowing with it in the background. Love stuff like that. 

i think people are quick to pan heritage just because it was such an out there album, all of opeths albums have been different. When damnation came out that was different but it still had the opeth vibe to it, i find heritage similar to that. To some extent

Also, because it was a pretty experimental album considering the bands previous work, it was never going to be perfect i guess.


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## CloudsofGrass (Mar 20, 2013)

DLG said:


> yeah, people need to remember that Opeth has been playing since the early 90s and that Mikael is almost 40.
> 
> *If you grew up on 90s death metal you would think that today's plastic sounding deathcore is lame too. *




I wholeheartedly agree with this. It seems to me like when I talk to these people who listen to this new djenty-post-metalcore stuff they always talk down about the old bands, and their only argument is that the recordings "soundlike crap". A lot of people these days think that good production = good music when that just isn't the case. Although good production can make good music better when it doesn't get in the way of the actual music.


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## McKay (Mar 21, 2013)

I'm so sick of the whole 'modern production has no dynamics' thing. Dynamics come from the music.


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## DLG (Mar 21, 2013)

no one is talking about dynamics. 

it's mostly about overcompensating with production for lazy/boring/rehashed/lame riffs


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## troyguitar (Mar 21, 2013)

Xiphos68 said:


> Quite honestly... I was really, really looking forward to what is now _Heritage._
> 
> I thought he was going to make an old-school prog album (Deep Purple, Rainbow Style) but with a heavy modern production. But I was wrong...


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## jehu12141987 (Mar 21, 2013)

Not as dull as Storm Corrosion, Mikael..


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## Adam Of Angels (Mar 21, 2013)

jehu12141987 said:


> Not as dull as Storm Corrosion, Mikael..




Storm Corrosion is supposed to be "dull", and modern extreme metal is not.


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## sear (Mar 21, 2013)

Sounds to me like Mikael has pretty limited musical horizons. There are a billion and one amazingly creative and talented metal bands out there, many in the extreme metal genres... that he doesn't want to recognize it is up to him. Yeah, everyone know metalcore and deathcore and djent fucking suck nuts for the most part, and let's face it, traditional death metal is awesome but also hasn't changed much in the last 15-20 years... but there is more to music than those. Guy needs to start listening to some Solefald, Orphaned Land, etc.


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## jehu12141987 (Mar 21, 2013)

Adam Of Angels said:


> Storm Corrosion is supposed to be "dull", and modern extreme metal is not.


 

I think it was supposed to be toned down and haunting, but not uninspired and dull. IMO, of course.


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## wankerness (Mar 21, 2013)

CloudsofGrass said:


> I wholeheartedly agree with this. It seems to me like when I talk to these people who listen to this new djenty-post-metalcore stuff they always talk down about the old bands, and their only argument is that the recordings "soundlike crap". A lot of people these days think that good production = good music when that just isn't the case. Although good production can make good music better when it doesn't get in the way of the actual music.



My argument is the riffs are often boring on the old stuff! I can't think of any OLDSKOOL METAL stuff I like unless you count the weird bands like Edge of Sanity and early At the Gates, but they were from the 90s already so not that old.


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## matisq (Mar 21, 2013)

My 2 cents.

I'm an Opeth's fan since 1997 when first time heard "Morningrise". At this time this album blows my mind. Masterpiece!

Then I bought cassette with "My Armes Your Hears" and I was confused! The music on that record was completely different from "Morningrise". It took me several years to really understand MAYH concept. In the meantime "Still Life" came up and this one became by favorite Opeth's recording. I love all song there! I heard this about million times and I can still enjoy this music. In the meantime I still didn't understand MAYH correctly. 
Then "Blackwater Park" - I like it a lot but "Still Life" I like a lot more. Then Deliverence/Damnation - to be honest I don't like Deliverance but Damnation is still my main ant stress album when I'm driving a car  
A know also "Ghost Reveries" and "Watershed" but didn't like. I think I started looking something else in music at that time.

I remember I've been waiting for Heritage (as I always do for any new Opeth's record) and guess what - I didn't like it to 

BUT

I have great respect for Mikael for that album and for his work. Hi is playing what he's like! This is most important when you are true musicians. It doesn't matter what people say when you play music which you like!

It's true that Steven Wilson was and influence for Mikael, but it works in both directions. Just check "The Raven that Refused to Sing" and please tell me that was not influenced by Opeth's music at some point.

All in all I'm still Opeth's fan


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## flint757 (Mar 21, 2013)

McKay said:


> I'm so sick of the whole 'modern production has no dynamics' thing. Dynamics come from the music.



Dynamics come from less compression and volume in production. Obviously if you aren't playing/recording with dynamics they won't exist either, but many bands in all genres tend to get rid of dynamics in favor of volume during the production process if they were there at all. It's a loudness war and dynamics can only exist if the recording is overall quieter than your average modern song. 

Unless you meant something entirely different, but that is what most people are referring to when they say dynamics.


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## VBCheeseGrater (Mar 21, 2013)

matisq said:


> Then I bought cassette with "My Armes Your Hears" and I was confused! The music on that record was completely different from "Morningrise". It took me several years to really understand MAYH concept. In the meantime "Still Life" came up and this one became by favorite Opeth's recording. I love all song there! I heard this about million times and I can still enjoy this music. In the meantime I still didn't understand MAYH correctly.



I'm with you on MAYH. It was always one of those albums that I expected to really dig after a couple more listens, but i never did really. It's just not as good as i wanted it to be. Still Life, on the other hand, is a masterpiece. And morningrise just had such a cool vibe that made it awesome in it's own right. MAYH, not so much for me. Give Ghost Reveries another listen, great album.

I'm not concerned with style or which genre an album fits, i just want a good album - and Heritage just was not a great album. Too much filler, ambient noise as was mentioned earlier. 

**I think Akerfelt is missing the point on this, he thinks its all snot nosed kids complaining for wanting death metal growling, when in actuality the album just isn't "all that", regardless of style or direction.**


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## Goro923 (Mar 21, 2013)

Lopez + Lindgren or GTFO


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## Ibanezsam4 (Mar 21, 2013)

flint757 said:


> Dynamics come from less compression and volume in production. Obviously if you aren't playing/recording with dynamics they won't exist either, but many bands in all genres tend to get rid of dynamics in favor of volume during the production process if they were there at all. It's a loudness war and dynamics can only exist if the recording is overall quieter than your average modern song.
> 
> Unless you meant something entirely different, but that is what most people are referring to when they say dynamics.



this +fucking ten million. i went to a Joe Satriani clinic once and he explained after playing Always With Me Always With You that you can't hear all the subtlety of his picking on the CD reissue because its been compressed so much from the vinyl. 

the louder this shit gets the more humanity is lost in our playing when recorded... its frustrating as hell to listen to 



jehu12141987 said:


> Not as dull as Storm Corrosion, Mikael..



that album is a complete work of art


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## CloudsofGrass (Mar 21, 2013)

wankerness said:


> My argument is the riffs are often boring on the old stuff! I can't think of any OLDSKOOL METAL stuff I like unless you count the weird bands like Edge of Sanity and early At the Gates, but they were from the 90s already so not that old.



Well, depending on the band, I guess. A lot of the early Cannibal Corpse stuff could be considered mediocre as far as riffage, but back then there wasn't a thousand other bands playing the style because it was a fairly new thing. Although I could make the same point about a lot of newer extreme metal, it seems like a lot of the riffs just aren't there anymore, and have been replaced by low tuned "chugging" rhythms.

Just curious though, could you give me an example of a few older death metal albums with boring riffs, in your opinion? I'm interested to hear someone else's point of view, years ago the first time I heard a lot of the early Deicide (albums like Legion and Once Upon The Cross), and early albums by Death and Obituary and such, a lot of the riffs struck me as real earworms, especially with Deicide. Lots of tricky timing and riffs that get stuck in your head. I'm not too familiar with the whole djent scene, but I have listened to a few songs by Periphery and such, and one thing that struck me after was that I couldn't remember a single riff or melody from any of the songs I listened to by them, just kind of a vague memory of a lot of switches from clean to chugging and such. Just my take on things.


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## wilch (Mar 21, 2013)

xethicx said:


> Im 35, I didnt like it because it didnt sound like Opeth, it sounded like Opeth light, now with aspartame. It had no balls, nothing memorable.
> 
> When I heard deliverance and damnation, my jaw hit the floor and I had those albums in my rotation for like a couple years. There wasnt a weak song on either record. It was their masterpiece and like many other bands, after the masterpiece it's tough to live up to it. Opeth hasnt lived up to it and also they for some reason decide to tuck that terrific material away on tour for some stupid reason.
> 
> I know there's kids and metal fans in general that think Opeth should just growl and play heavy all the time, I am not one of those people. However I do wish they would go back to playing mindblowing music.



I'm 33, and I too bruised my jaw when I heard Deliverance and Damnation. Especially Damnation after Deliverance. Damnation is one of my favourite albums.

But I also had a similar experience when I first heard Heritage. I don't know, but at the time to my ears it was "fresh". It was like 70's prog but produced properly, no hiss, and with clear separation of instruments. I started listening, and didn't stop, and then re-listened straight after. Much like I did with Damnation.

Interesting to see that your experience was very different. It's cool how everyone hears things differently though.


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## wankerness (Mar 21, 2013)

CloudsofGrass said:


> Well, depending on the band, I guess. A lot of the early Cannibal Corpse stuff could be considered mediocre as far as riffage, but back then there wasn't a thousand other bands playing the style because it was a fairly new thing. Although I could make the same point about a lot of newer extreme metal, it seems like a lot of the riffs just aren't there anymore, and have been replaced by low tuned "chugging" rhythms.
> 
> Just curious though, could you give me an example of a few older death metal albums with boring riffs, in your opinion? I'm interested to hear someone else's point of view, years ago the first time I heard a lot of the early Deicide (albums like Legion and Once Upon The Cross), and early albums by Death and Obituary and such, a lot of the riffs struck me as real earworms, especially with Deicide. Lots of tricky timing and riffs that get stuck in your head. I'm not too familiar with the whole djent scene, but I have listened to a few songs by Periphery and such, and one thing that struck me after was that I couldn't remember a single riff or melody from any of the songs I listened to by them, just kind of a vague memory of a lot of switches from clean to chugging and such. Just my take on things.



Yeah, I agree that plenty of modern stuff is bland too, it just seems that the pioneers of DM weren't very interesting and what came since at least had the opportunity to develop it. 

I find Death pre-Human to be pretty bland, same with stuff like Entombed - Wolverine Blues or the first couple Morbid Angel/CC/Carcass records. Even some of the stuff that used to be held up as incredibly innovative/technical like Atheist doesn't really interest me riff-wise. 

Oh, and of course a lot of early black metal is much worse imo, like Darkthrone and Burzum and Mayhem (pre-Wolf's Lair Abyss) and all that. 

I mean, at least they were trying to play their instruments, but a lot of it just sounds like unmemorable flailing too. It's not till about 95 or 96 where a lot of stuff I like started coming on the scene. Cynic is the only extreme metal album I can think of offhand from pre-95 that I have listened to a zillion times.

This is just like, death/black metal and grindcore and that sort of thing I'm talking about, of course I love plenty of the 80s thrash bands and think their riffs are great.


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## McKay (Mar 21, 2013)

flint757 said:


> Dynamics come from less compression and volume in production. Obviously if you aren't playing/recording with dynamics they won't exist either, but many bands in all genres tend to get rid of dynamics in favor of volume during the production process if they were there at all. It's a loudness war and dynamics can only exist if the recording is overall quieter than your average modern song.
> 
> Unless you meant something entirely different, but that is what most people are referring to when they say dynamics.



Yeah but that's worth shit all if your music has no dynamics. What fucking difference do some extra drum transients make in the majority of modern metal music? Because that's all you're losing if the dynamic level is already constant musically.

The argument is overblown for this genre for two reasons:

1) The heights of the loudness war have been abandoned for quite some time. Californiacation and Death Magnetic were very influential, people still do loud masters but it's not as heavyhanded as it once was.

2) It's metal, not Bob Dylan. Compressing, clipping and limiting the fuck out of folk, jazz, classical or even the sparser rock stuff kills a lot of headroom and dynamics that are there in the playing. If you're using high gain guitars, it makes considerably less difference. Why? Look at a disorted guitar's waveform compared to an acoustic. Distortion _enormously_ compresses the signal to the point that the dynamics are almost completely gone. The only 'dynamics' left in the mix are the drums, which aren't particularly dynamic unless it's a musical choice. Getting loudness there involves clipping, which is about transients.

TL;DR - It's more about transients than dynamics if you're playing music based on distorted guitars. It's still worth dialing down the loudness some more but the extent to which limiting and compression ruin metal mixes is hugely overblown and misunderstood.


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## AdamMaz (Mar 21, 2013)

I haven't listened to Opeth in the longest time, this thread gives me the urge.


Still Life


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## Tang (Mar 21, 2013)

AdamMaz said:


> I haven't listened to Opeth in the longest time, this thread gives me the urge.
> 
> 
> Still Life



Still Life was my first Opeth album, and I remember buying it because of this new thing called the Internet. I remember getting to Godhead's Lament and being utterly terrified. 

I didn't pick it up again for years, but now it's my favorite Opeth album.


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## wankerness (Mar 22, 2013)

I still say MAYH is their best in a landslide, but that's just me. It was a lot colder and harsher than anything they ever did afterwards and for some reason it just really appeals to me and makes MAYH the most unique in their catalog. There's just something about several sections of it that give me chills in a way almost nothing else can manage. Like, the part in April Ethereal where he screams "take me away" all the way to the ending is just a big musical orgasm, or the explosion into that riff at 5:10 in When, or the outro of Demon of the Fall, or the despairing lurch of a riff five minutes into Karma. Just a great album, I can listen to the whole thing all the way through any time. I usually just skip to the songs I like on all their other albums, it functions much better as a whole. Which I guess it should, since it and Still Life are the only two concept albums they've done (as far as I know, I never paid attention to Watershed or Heritage).

Still Life has a much warmer feeling to it and my biggest issue with it is some of the songs felt like they had padding (ex, the first minute or two of "The Moor," the way they first really started having repeating sections on this album, etc). I still love it of course, it's just a little bit more of an endurance test than MAYH and I find myself often skipping the last couple minutes of "The Moor" and sometimes just skipping through the verses on Moonlapse Vertigo or the choruses on Serenity Painted Death or the first couple minutes of White Cluster. 

Still Life, BWP, Ghost Reveries and Morningrise I'd all say are 10/10 albums, just they all have different flaws, while MAYH has almost none (I guess "Credence" doesn't match the ballads on Still Life). Still Life was really where they got the Opeth "formula" down and nearly everything since just seems to be slight variations on it, besides Damnation and Heritage of course.


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## asher (Mar 22, 2013)

wankerness said:


> Which I guess it should, since it and Still Life are the only two concept albums they've done (as far as I know, I never paid attention to Watershed or Heritage).





I'm pretty sure Blackwater Park has a story, and Ghost Reveries is _definitely_ one too, with the exception of Isolation Years, which Mikael just loved too much to not include.


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## JEngelking (Mar 22, 2013)

^ To my knowledge, Ghost Reveries is also a concept album.

Edit: @wankerness. And I think Blackwater has constant underlying themes, but doesn't necessarily tell a story. I could be wrong though...


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## samdaman87 (Mar 22, 2013)

Lol leave Mike alone, he is going through a mid-life crisis and he needs to vent it out. It's a clear sign that he will eventually start a smooth jazz solo career within the next couple of years.


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## wankerness (Mar 22, 2013)

asher said:


> I'm pretty sure Blackwater Park has a story, and Ghost Reveries is _definitely_ one too, with the exception of Isolation Years, which Mikael just loved too much to not include.



I know blackwater park wasn't, someone came up with some theory that it was about a leper colony or something but it was later proven that it didn't hold together. It has some repeating ideas though. As for Ghost Reveries I guess I never read the lyrics after hearing how bad they were on Isolation Years, haha. I just don't recall threads about it being a concept album on the Opeth forum back in the day.


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## DarkNe0 (Mar 22, 2013)

I will keep wearing my Ghost Reveries t-shirt.


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## matisq (Mar 22, 2013)

Ahh and guess what. During my wedding party I had only one request:
"Hey Mr. DJ! Play Opeth's 'To Bid You Farewell' for me"


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## wankerness (Mar 22, 2013)

DarkNe0 said:


> I will keep wearing my Ghost Reveries t-shirt.



I had a sweet shirt from the Damnation tour and lost it a couple years ago


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## asher (Mar 22, 2013)

wankerness said:


> I know blackwater park wasn't, someone came up with some theory that it was about a leper colony or something but it was later proven that it didn't hold together. It has some repeating ideas though. As for Ghost Reveries I guess I never read the lyrics after hearing how bad they were on Isolation Years, haha. I just don't recall threads about it being a concept album on the Opeth forum back in the day.


 
Hm. You're probably right about BWP, though it has a _very_ consistent feel and set of themes to me so that's where that may come from.

Give the rest of Ghost Reveries a read though. Isolation Years is much different in style


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## Konfyouzd (Mar 22, 2013)

Lotta butthurt ass metal heads in here... 

"He no even make metal anymore... He's dull..." 

Awesome comeback, guys... Way to think critically, compare apples to oranges and spit out a knee-jerk loogie of bias... 

On a more relevant note, a lot of modern extreme metal IS boring... I haven't even listened to homeboy's reasons, but I feel like it has to do with what was mentioned before, there seems to be this lack of dynamics in a lot of extreme metal. 

And people like to overdo that "I'm evil" nonsense... No one fucking cares...


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## DarkNe0 (Mar 22, 2013)

Now back on topic, yes, a lot of extreme metal is dull. But if you're going to that conclusion, then let me say that Heritage is a dull album.

I'll have to admit that as an album, it is a very, very good one. But as an Opeth album, it IS dull. Why? Because every Opeth fan that's been here for a long time always had his expectations set to high. We all expected songs which really took you to another world, progress into something you've never expected, have so much power and aggressiveness in them, or the polar opposite: be extremely emotional and soft. 

Now, I LOVE Opeth's soft tracks and ballads. To Bid You Farewell, Credence and Hope Leaves are some of my favorite Opeth songs. 

Moreover, if we compare Damnation and Heritage, you're simply losing your mind if you say that Heritage is a better Opeth album than Damnation. On a technical level, yes, it might be superior, but again as an Opeth album it definitely does not come anywhere close to the mood of Damnation.


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## Konfyouzd (Mar 22, 2013)

I still don't really see how Damnation is an apples to apples comparison to Heritage. In fact, I don't think you should compare albums that way and have "expectations" of them. 

I'm pretty sure I watched an interview with him before where he made it very clear they the music THEY like... I get where a lot of folks are coming from, but a lot of you also sound like you feel you're entitled to having a band you like make music specifically tailored to your expectations... 

But I do like that someone attempted to itemize their qualms rather than spit out some nonsense... 

Even in the sense that it doesn't seem to "go as many places" as other Opeth albums seemed to, to me it does still go places in that, a lot of these are [musical] ideas I haven't heard expressed via that particular band. And in that, it's gone somewhere new for me. Further, I admire any band willing to go outside of what it is that got them recognition in the first place in search of what THEY find to be their true sound regardless of what critics feel they "should be."


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## Opion (Mar 22, 2013)

wankerness said:


> I still say MAYH is their best in a landslide, but that's just me. It was a lot colder and harsher than anything they ever did afterwards and for some reason it just really appeals to me and makes MAYH the most unique in their catalog. There's just something about several sections of it that give me chills in a way almost nothing else can manage. Like, the part in April Ethereal where he screams "take me away" all the way to the ending is just a big musical orgasm, or the explosion into that riff at 5:10 in When, or the outro of Demon of the Fall, or the despairing lurch of a riff five minutes into Karma. Just a great album, I can listen to the whole thing all the way through any time. I usually just skip to the songs I like on all their other albums, it functions much better as a whole. Which I guess it should, since it and Still Life are the only two concept albums they've done (as far as I know, I never paid attention to Watershed or Heritage).
> 
> Still Life has a much warmer feeling to it and my biggest issue with it is some of the songs felt like they had padding (ex, the first minute or two of "The Moor," the way they first really started having repeating sections on this album, etc). I still love it of course, it's just a little bit more of an endurance test than MAYH and I find myself often skipping the last couple minutes of "The Moor" and sometimes just skipping through the verses on Moonlapse Vertigo or the choruses on Serenity Painted Death or the first couple minutes of White Cluster.
> 
> Still Life, BWP, Ghost Reveries and Morningrise I'd all say are 10/10 albums, just they all have different flaws, while MAYH has almost none (I guess "Credence" doesn't match the ballads on Still Life). Still Life was really where they got the Opeth "formula" down and nearly everything since just seems to be slight variations on it, besides Damnation and Heritage of course.




I can't agree more with this post 

I had gotten into Ghost Reveries/Damnation when I first listened to Opeth, but MAYH was my first step back into their catalog...something about the cover of the album spoke to me. I'd been used to seeing similar scenes from my childhood and the place that I grew so, and something about the way the album just carries on with this sort of haunting mystique just entranced me. Every listen I could just envision the sonic landscapes they intended the listener to picture in their head - this, I feel, is what sets them apart from most bands, is that every album conveys a different vibe and emotion, but still containing that "Royal" sound, if you will. (Confused about what I mean? Just listen to "A Fair Judgment".) Even Heritage, while not as captivating, still has that trademark Opeth sound on the parts - "The Lines in My Hand" particularly.

You can't please everyone, I'd guess is the most resolving statement regarding this argument, but Mikael and Co. already know that.  In the subject of "Dull" extreme metal, I think it's possible to still like extreme music and still appreciate music with more substance, but it's becoming harder to find these days as the trends lead us into a darker corner. I'd be curious to hear his opinion on SikTh's music


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## wankerness (Mar 22, 2013)

I don't really keep up with interviews from him, but I know he does like some metal albums here and there. I remember him raving about Katatonia's "Night is the New Day" a few years ago for example.


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## Deaths Madrigal (Mar 22, 2013)

wankerness said:


> I don't really keep up with interviews from him, but I know he does like some metal albums here and there. I remember him raving about Katatonia's "Night is the New Day" a few years ago for example.



As much as i love katatonia, especially 'brave murder day' with akerfeldt on vocals, i could never trust this statement. Its a known fact that mikael and the guys from katatonia are very close friends, of course they are going to support eachother and praise their comrades albums. Yes he likes some metal albums, most notably the bands he listened to at an earlier age (morbid angel, entombed, dismember etc.) but you wont see him praising any new metal releases unless he is associated with them. Mikael grew up with the death metal scene and hes simply grown tired of it. Bloodbath was just a tribute band in good fun, then the other guys wanted to take it farther than mikael bargained for and so he quit. He has slowly phased the doom and death metal influences out of opeth as well. Not sure if anyone else has noticed but mikaels growls have been suffering as of late too, and i have no doubt it is in some way a contributing factor to the softer opeth we have now. Just listen to him on bloodbath over bloodstock, his voice is all but lost. Having said all of this, as negative as it seems, akerfeldt is a legend to todays metal and easily ranks in the top 3 death metal vocalists of all time, even if we dont hear those growls again.


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## asher (Mar 23, 2013)

Deaths Madrigal said:


> As much as i love katatonia, especially 'brave murder day' with akerfeldt on vocals, i could never trust this statement. Its a known fact that mikael and the guys from katatonia are very close friends, of course they are going to support eachother and praise their comrades albums. Yes he likes some metal albums, most notably the bands he listened to at an earlier age (morbid angel, entombed, dismember etc.) but you wont see him praising any new metal releases unless he is associated with them. Mikael grew up with the death metal scene and hes simply grown tired of it. Bloodbath was just a tribute band in good fun, then the other guys wanted to take it farther than mikael bargained for and so he quit. He has slowly phased the doom and death metal influences out of opeth as well. Not sure if anyone else has noticed but mikaels growls have been suffering as of late too, and i have no doubt it is in some way a contributing factor to the softer opeth we have now. Just listen to him on bloodbath over bloodstock, his voice is all but lost. Having said all of this, as negative as it seems, akerfeldt is a legend to todays metal and easily ranks in the top 3 death metal vocalists of all time, even if we dont hear those growls again.



He sounded pretty damn great when I saw them last year, better than I was expecting even given all the talk of his growls having seriously slipped in quality. There's a bunch of talk about how his switch to inears was fucking with them or something, I don't know how true that is.


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## DLG (Mar 23, 2013)

Deaths Madrigal said:


> As much as i love katatonia, especially 'brave murder day' with akerfeldt on vocals, i could never trust this statement. Its a known fact that mikael and the guys from katatonia are very close friends, of course they are going to support eachother and praise their comrades albums.



I'm pretty sure that Mikael and Jonas are best friends and have been for a long time.


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## tomcat ha (Mar 30, 2013)

wankerness said:


> Classical Roots? What do you mean? To my ears they've always had heavy prog rock influence (ex Epilogue on MAYH). Only thing I can think of was that inexplicable piano interlude on Orchid that was all their drummer at that time. They're getting more prog rock and less metal now but I'm wondering where classical comes into this.



well opeth pretty much evolved out of the whole classical influenced swedish death/black scene(early at the gates, dissection come to mind)
Later on it seems mikael seemingly wanted to put more prog rock into his sound. Blackwater park already has more prog rock elements than classical. Morningrise however mostly had classical influenced playing.


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## DrZoidberg (May 13, 2013)

I just saw them last night in Cleveland, and he said that they were dull, which was absolutely not true. He's also quite the cheeky fellow live.


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## Korbain (May 13, 2013)

DrZoidberg said:


> I just saw them last night in Cleveland, and he said that they were dull, which was absolutely not true. He's also quite the cheeky fellow live.



haha yeah i do love his smart ass sense of humour. When they played reverie-Harlequin Forest after that ending with the fucked out timing he goes 'that was our meshuggah impersonation" or something along that haha


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## VBCheeseGrater (May 13, 2013)

DrZoidberg said:


> I just saw them last night in Cleveland, and he said that they were dull, which was absolutely not true. He's also quite the cheeky fellow live.



Hell yes. And they played some of their heaviest stuff at our norfolk gig - "extreme" even - opening with Heir Apparent was beastly!


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## RagtimeDandy (May 13, 2013)

Mikael is the original metal troll. Or perhaps Mastodon, but they're just goofy dudes


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## NovaReaper (May 13, 2013)

tomcat ha said:


> Morningrise however mostly had classical influenced playing.



no it doesn't


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## tripguitar (May 13, 2013)

im just here to say that heritage is probably my favorite opeth album... but that could be because i only recently started listening to them, and was getting into 70's prog rock at about the same time...

though hessian peel is a sweeeeeet song.


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## Valennic (May 13, 2013)

There isn't a single Opeth album I don't like. I guess me and Mikael are just on the same page . Some of you seem legitimately angry that they changed direction. It's rather alarming .

I agree with him though. Extreme metal has gotten pretty dull. I have a seriously difficult time getting into new bands because of it. It's not just extreme metal either, it's across the board. Everything is overproduced, rehashed, autotuned to hell and back, and it's just fatiguing to my ears. I've found a few bands I like, and listen to consistently, and I don't actively hate the newer stuff, I just don't tend to listen to it much anymore. .


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## ArtDecade (May 13, 2013)

^ Its the Metallica Effect.


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## wankerness (May 13, 2013)

I think it's the old man effect actually. Almost everyone reaches a certain age and loses interest in learning anything new or listening to new music and then they try and blame those darn kids for not making great music like whoever was doing it back when they were younger and try and come up with reasons why today's music is objectively worse than yesterday's music. Not trying to attack anyone here it's just something that seems to be very very common among people of all interests across all eras, and can strike at pretty much any age but becomes more and more inevitable the older you get. I definitely think Mikael has reached that stage of his life. You see it constantly among classic rock fans and I'm even seeing posts some places about BRING BACK THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF BANDS LIKE PAPA ROACH and it's just...gah.

SEE ALSO: Almost every youtube video of every song written before about 2008 of any genre has a high rated comment going THIS IS REAL MUSIC UNLIKE JUSTIN BIEBER THUMBS UP IF YOU AGREE THAT MUSIC SHOULD BE LIKE THIS AGAIN


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## Demiurge (May 13, 2013)

wankerness said:


> I think it's the old man effect actually. Almost everyone reaches a certain age and loses interest in learning anything new or listening to new music and then they try and blame those darn kids for not making great music like whoever was doing it back when they were younger and try and come up with reasons why today's music is objectively worse than yesterday's music.



Could be, but there's another side of the coin. One might get old enough where they don't have the wherewithal to "get with current times", and just do what they want, using "they don't make 'em like they used to" as the excuse. 

_But also_, one can also get old enough to see that the history often repeats itself, and that the stuff that people whoop and holler about as the next big thing has been done before. If you've been in the game long enough to see trends come and go and come again, it's hard to get or stay excited over the re-re-repackaging of the thing that you're already very familiar with. As a fan of metal for 20 years, I admit this fatigue but will flip my lid whenever something new or interesting develops... but those instances just seem fewer and further between.


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## ilyti (May 13, 2013)

Demiurge said:


> _But also_, one can also get old enough to see that the history often repeats itself, and that the stuff that people whoop and holler about as the next big thing has been done before. If you've been in the game long enough to see trends come and go and come again, it's hard to get or stay excited over the re-re-repackaging of the thing that you're already very familiar with. As a fan of metal for 20 years, I admit this fatigue but will flip my lid whenever something new or interesting develops... but those instances just seem fewer and further between.



I would like to think this about myself too. And, like everyone, I went through phases. I had an extreme metal phase where I was interested in at least giving a chance to anything and everything like that. But it passed, and I haven't heard enough of that stuff recently to tell whether its getting better or worse or staying the same. I'm just not interested anymore, and I figure it's the same with most people as they get older. I think anyone who stays a fan of the exact same kind of music as they get older are developmentally stagnant. It's the same with the bands who put out the same album over and over again. They can't grow up either, but, each to his own I guess.


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## Don Vito (May 13, 2013)

I think for extreme metal to come back in full force, there needs to be a cultural change. Kids these days have piils and therapy to deal with their problems. 

I spent 2012 walking through the woods contemplating suicide. I wrote and recorded some super low fi extreme metal(that I will not publish). The music was utter shit, and most of it just sounded like rehashed BM from the early 90's.

My point is, a lot of people play metal because they enjoy it and want to have fun. Metal is supposed to be a serious and spiritual form of expression. A way to deal with your personal demon's. If I want to have fun, I will get drunk and throw on some Nicki Manaj(don't be hatin').

End of fucking story.


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## abandonist (May 13, 2013)

It's not that extreme metal is dull, it's that most music is bad, and that includes metal.


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## flint757 (May 14, 2013)

It isn't an old factor either. I personally think rock music was at its best in the 70's and that was well before I was even born.


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## Don Vito (May 14, 2013)

That's because rock in the 70's was about either about passionate sex or sticking it to the man. Rock these days is about having fun, or pretending to be an outcast. Or Jesus.

Fun ruined heavy music. And Jesus.

Although you could say Jesus inspired some of the heaviest metal bands ever. Without Christianity, many extreme bands wouldn't have lyrical content.


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## sear (May 14, 2013)

I don't know why people find extreme metal to be especially boring. Saying extreme metal is boring is like saying rock music is boring. There is so much variety to be found that you can't dismiss the genre outright.

I mean, within extreme metal you have:

1) Folk/Viking metal
2) Death metal
3) Melodic death metal
4) Blackened death metal
5) Black metal
6) Post-black metal
7) Avant-garde metal
8) Death'n'roll
9) Grindcore
10) Sludge metal

And that doesn't even begin to touch upon any number of sub-genres within these sub-genres, and of course the stylistic leanings of various scenes and the contributions in certain parts of the world. For instance, Melechesh and Orphaned Land are both extreme metal, and both have "Middle Eastern" influence, but they sound completely different.

Nah, what's funny and boring is that metalcore and djent are so popular, and almost every one of those bands sounds completely identical to the next. Sounds like Mikael needs to stop listening to Killswitch Engage.


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## Fiction (May 14, 2013)

sear said:


> Everything



I highly doubt the only "Extreme Metal" Mikael has heard is Killswitch Engage, and your whole posts reek of genre elitism.


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## GRUNTKOR (May 14, 2013)

rofl @ the implication Akerfeldt even considers KSE 'extreme metal'


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## sear (May 14, 2013)

Fiction said:


> I highly doubt the only "Extreme Metal" Mikael has heard is Killswitch Engage, and your whole posts reek of genre elitism.


That is called a joke.

I'm also not sure how pointing out how much variety there is within extreme metal constitutes genre elitism. How am I being an elitist about a particular genre by highlighting how many sub-genres and how much variety it has? Shouldn't an elitist almost by definition be extremely exclusive and, for lack of a better term, picky in his/her opinion?

So basically you either admit to having an opinion that is counter-intuitive at best and makes no sense at worst, or that you're dismissing my post because of an off-hand joke about Mike liking Killswitch Engage. Butthurt much?


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## Fiction (May 14, 2013)

I'm sure many people would say all those sub-genres sound the same, some people just can't tell the difference. Growling = All Metal to pop fans, and anything catchy to metal fans is all pop. Never mind my post, just pointing out in a less than acceptable manner I didn't agree with your post 

The elitist was about you throwing djent/metal core under the bus simply because you don't like it. Metal core probably has the largest saturation on bands which may seem all similar, but surely you can find at least a few bands that sound different. Mostly just confused why extreme metal fans haven't understood that they're a minority and won't accept the fact that regular jackoffs thinks their music sounds the same.


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## Korbain (May 14, 2013)

I just hate sub genres, music is music. If it's heavy, its metal to me. That's about as far as i like to think about it. Everyone over complicates it these days


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## Brodessa (May 14, 2013)

Watershed was the first album I was exposed to, after listening to The Lotus Eater, (A killer track imo) and I really enjoyed it. It actually broadened my senses to accept a softer sound with Metal. When I bought the album, I expected it to be a full-on barrage of sound, intense vocals and instrumentals performing a relentless attack like many of the bands I listened to at the time, (Whitechapel being one of them.) Coil was such an odd beginning to me, but I truly enjoyed the sound. Heir Apparent and The Lotus Eater kept it going, and I found myself enjoying it even more. It wasn't until the 2nd half of the album that I got a bit bored, and decided to listen to something else. (Don't get me wrong, Hessian Peel is one of my favorite Opeth songs) After listening to them quite a bit I decided to check out Blackwater Park and fell in love. I got pretty excited for Heritage, expecting a dark and eerie album with a lot of atmosphere, and some extreme elements. 
I was pretty disappointed. After one listen all the way through, I was pretty much done with it. It's a good album, if you're into that kind of music, I'm sure. It was a fairly easy listen, I suppose. Overall, I was disappointed. I can only hope they bring back a little bit of their heavier sound. Otherwise, I'll more than likely be done with the music. 
Regarding extreme metal, I started getting into Metal during the rise of Core. I believe that with every style of music, to find the truly unique and interesting, you do have to do a bit of digging. It's not often that the most talented and awesome bands that snatch your attention are right on the surface of the genre. The style is not becoming dull, though I do agree at the production stand-point. There are many great artists and interesting bands out there, still doing what they enjoy and producing truly great music.


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## 3074326 (May 14, 2013)

Korbain said:


> I just hate sub genres, music is music. If it's heavy, its metal to me. That's about as far as i like to think about it. Everyone over complicates it these days



This

I hate when people ask me what kind of metal I listen to. I don't even know anymore. I fuckin' listen to metal.


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## VBCheeseGrater (May 14, 2013)

NovaReaper said:


> no it doesn't



It's not a huge stretch to call morningrise classically influenced. There's counterpoint all over the place on that album.



wankerness said:


> I think it's the old man effect actually. Almost everyone reaches a certain age and loses interest in learning anything new or listening to new music and then they try and blame those darn kids for not making great music like whoever was doing it back when they were younger and try and come up with reasons why today's music is objectively worse than yesterday's music.



Truth - there's always older folks that think modern music is crap and these pesky kids can't play their instruments. In reality, alot of the styles these guys bash have players that can play circles around some of the "old fart" idols. I'm getting older, but i try to at least stay open minded. When i put on Animals as Leaders - i was impressed - really nice playing and creative songs.


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## JeffFromMtl (May 14, 2013)

I think country music is dull. 

Discuss for 6 pages.


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## Don Vito (May 14, 2013)

JeffFromMtl said:


> I think country music is dull.
> 
> Discuss for 6 pages.


Well, a lot country music is supposed to be a bit dull at times

Country music is about the hardships and lifetimes in the great rural America. It's the kind of music you play on a rainy day when you can't get outside to ride your horse or tend to the garden. It's the music that your God given wife rocks to in her rocking chair knitting sweaters and quilts so her family can stay warm during the winter.

But it's also what boys did back in the good ol' days when your weekend consisted of: Church, hoedowns(which were some times illegal due to Satanic lust), and stealing whiskey from your father's liquor cabinet. The rebellion of yesteryear. They didn't have bee boops and breakdowns.. Just wood and some rusty strings that they saved their life's earnings for.


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## tedtan (May 15, 2013)

A bit off topic from death metal, but a lot of country is boring. At least most of what passes for country these days is just pop music with a fake southern accent and a bit of overdrive on the guitars.

Now if you're talking about bluegrass or old time country, some of that can be interesting. Especially some of the instrumental stuff (I HATE the bluegrass vocal style. And banjos.).


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## Necris (May 16, 2013)

I like country more than Opeth.


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## Don Vito (May 16, 2013)

tedtan said:


> (I HATE the bluegrass vocal style. And banjos.).


I went to a bluegrass show once at a small Baptist church in the middle of nowhere Alabama.

I shit you not there was a 15 minute speech about heavy metal being the devil's music.

The banjos are legit, but the way they sing grates my ears. Can't believe I stayed the whole time


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## Interloper (May 16, 2013)

I didn't read seven pages because fuck you but I am a "grown ass man with childrens" and I liked Heritage better than anything Opeth has done since Deliverance/Damnation. I also enjoyed Mastodon's Hunter more than anything since Leviathan.


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## NovaReaper (May 16, 2013)

by the way mikael is most definitely talking about djent and deathcore lmfao sucks to suck


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