Opeth - Blackwater Park review
| Band: | Opeth |
| Album: | Blackwater Park |
| Style: | Extreme progressive metal |
| Release date: | March 12, 2001 |
| Guest review by: | Rupophobic |
01. The Leper Affinity
02. Bleak [feat. Steven Wilson]
03. Harvest
04. The Drapery Falls
05. Dirge For November
06. The Funeral Portrait
07. Patterns In The Ivy
08. Blackwater Park
09. The Leper Affinity [live] [Legacy edition bonus]
[Limited edition bonus CD]
01. Still Day Beneath The Sun
02. Patterns In The Ivy II
[Legacy Edition bonus DVD]
+ 5.0 Audio Mix Of The Original Album
+ The Making Of Blackwater Park
Passion. That's what Blackwater Park is all about. Pure, unadulterated passion. Forget that Opeth display musical ability and know-how that is rivaled by few. Forget that the ending to The Leper Affinity goes from what can only be described as one of the greatest jam sessions ever, to a beautiful, yet melancholic pianistic epilogue. Forget that Harvest is one of the greatest acoustic songs ever written. Forget that Blackwater Park contains the perfect metal riff. Forget that Mikael Akerfeld quite possibly has the best voice in all of music. Forget that every moment of this album will make you stand in awe of what you're hearing. Why should you forget all that? Because none of it matters.
What matters is that Opeth's music connects with the listener on a level that no other band has ever obtained. Just what that level is can's be defined. It can only be felt. And the only way to feel it is to listen. And I do mean LISTEN. You shouldn's do so much as twiddle your thumbs during the play of this, or any other of their albums. You would only be hurting yourself. Their only rivals in this department would be the immortal classical composers, such as Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. But Opeth still beats them out.
I can's tell you how difficult it is for me to rate this at all. By doing so, I'm implying that Blackwater Park, and indeed all of Opeth's works, can be somehow compared with any other album by any other band. That is simply not true. I have given perfect 10's to bands that don's even register on the scale when compared to Opeth. The very fact that I'm pretending to be worthy enough to even discuss Opeth's music is an unforgivable sin. No amount of words in this, or any other, language can begin to describe the tapestry of emotions on this, or any of their albums. Opeth's creations transcend not only metal, but art itself. This is the language of the soul.
Written by Rupophobic | 18.09.2003
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Rating:
2.0
2.0
|
Rating: 2.0 |
This charade has gone on long enough. It's time someone gave this crappy album an honest assessment. Read more ›› |
Rating:
9.9
9.9
|
Rating: 9.9 |
There are few bands that dare to continuously expand their musical sphere with each release, expecting their fans to accept the changes - even fewer succeed. Mikael Åkerfeldt, song writer and front man of Opeth, has pushed Opeth to do so since the band's inception and perhaps it's this constant change, not giving the audience a chance to adjust to one particular niche, which keeps them from ending up like so many metal bands before them: repetitive and uninspired. 2001 was the year Opeth opened the floodgates of creativity and released what many believe to be their magnum opus, an album so hyped you might doubt its brilliance. I'm here to tell you not to doubt. This is Blackwater Park. Read more ›› |
Comments page 6 / 6
Comments: 162
Visited by: 1090 users
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| Hex_Omega Gem Seeker Posts: 1178 |
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| Daniell _爱情_ Elite Posts: 6101  |
This review is a written equivalent of a sloppy, submissive blowjob. Given with "pure unadulterated passion" of course  I still have no idea why the author writes "can's" and "don's" instead of "can't" and "don 't". I also have no idea how this got through proof-reading.
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| Mikolaj Account deleted |
Mikolaj
Account deleted
"Their only rivals in this department would be the immortal classical composers, such as Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. But Opeth still beats them out". Was the reviewer high on drugs or something?
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| Metren Dreadrealm Posts: 1410  |
Written by [user id=160508] on 01.09.2016 at 11:16 While the review is certainly ridiculous, I don't see why that statement deserves special attention. As a person, who considers Bach perhaps my favorite composer of all time, I still don't think it is automatically wrong to think Mikael Akerfeldt is a superior musician, especially since him and Bach lived hunderds of years apart and create(d) completely different music and especially because the author of the review is talking about how the music makes him/her feel. Could Mikael write St Matthew Passion? Almost certainly not. Could Bach have written Black Rose Immortal if he had lived in our times? Also, almost certainly not. I'm not trying to defend the review or be a shallow contrarian here, but I honestly think this attitude of "every classical composer is by default better than every musician, who lives now" is not at all justified. Please bear in mind: Bach is the biggest musical genius in history IMO.
---- My one-man project's Bandcamp with free downloads: https://dreadrealm.bandcamp.com/
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| Karlabos Posts: 5736  |
Written by Metren on 01.09.2016 at 18:30 haha. You have no idea how i hate that kind of though. it also applies in other contexts as well: the big four thrash metal bands are by default the best thrash to ever exist, since all the other ones have their sound based on them. thrash wouldn't exist without band x, metal wouldn't exist without band y, music wouldn't exist as it is today without the classical artists... let's face it: if they haven't done it other person would have... and would have taken the glory for it. just because they were born at a convenient time doesn't make them legendary... of course, classical music is a genre which wasn't based on anything previously existent so the musicians may have that "creativity" and all, plus the complexity... but well, i like to think it's something any good living musician would have done if it wasn't done until then. I myself prefer judging music based on what it means to me, and not to history. I don't know a lot about about complexity of songwriting, about scales, about who came first or whatsoever, what I know is what I feel when I listen to it. I'd probably rate most classical music albums a 4 or 5 according to ms rating scheme :3 If I was to point who is the best composer ever, even thoughpeople would expect me to point someone relevant to the music history from the 1700s, I'd probably name an underground name of someone who is even alive nowadays.
---- "Aah! The cat turned into a cat!" - Reimu Hakurei
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| Mikolaj Account deleted |
Mikolaj
Account deleted Written by Metren on 01.09.2016 at 18:30 Well I agree with you and I certainly understand that someone might think that Opeth is better than Bach. After all, music taste is subjective and classical music simply isnt to everyones tastes. So I can completely respect someones opinion, if he/she thinks this way. Its just that this review comes off as completely naive and blind without any real reasoning why he thinks so. Just sounds as if Opeth is his wet dream to be honest.
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| Metren Dreadrealm Posts: 1410 |
Written by [user id=160508] on 02.09.2016 at 00:45 Well, I agree with that. In the context of the review, that Bach/Mozart/Beethoven statement is just more of the author being ridiculous (I would actually be willing to bet a small sum of money that the author isn't even familiar with the works of those classical composers), on its own however, I think it is a statement not be laughed/shrugged off immediately, that's just the point I was making. But yeah, as an Opeth fan, this review is especially awful, since it makes us look bad 
---- My one-man project's Bandcamp with free downloads: https://dreadrealm.bandcamp.com/
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| nikarg Staff Posts: 7345  |
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| Karlabos Posts: 5736 |
Written by nikarg on 01.04.2018 at 00:44 And the best thing is that it was not a joke review. I was reading the comments and was surprised to see not many people were laughing at its whimsical nature until a couple years after its acceptance
---- "Aah! The cat turned into a cat!" - Reimu Hakurei
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| Roman Doez Hallucigenia Posts: 973  |
Only 4 months until this review is officially an adult
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| RaduP CertifiedHipster Staff Posts: 9028  |
Written by Roman Doez on 13.05.2021 at 18:36 The actual review is older than that, from some older versions of MS from 2001, right around the time the album was released.
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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