Post Reply - Albums like Orchid by Opeth?

Can someone please recommend me some albums with the same riffing style as Opeth's Orchid? I've been looking for stuff that's like Orchid for a long while because I just really, really hate the rest of Opeth's catalogue.

What I'm specifically looking for: the riffing style, that sort of power metally/trad heavy twin guitar melody work, (think, say, the intro of "In Mist...") where both guitars are playing slightly different melodies or harmonies at the same time (counterpoints) as opposed to have one playing melodies and the other doing chords, yet with a certain rock 'n' roll sloppiness to it. Important that there's little to no tremolo picking and the riffs are never chunky or groovy, and that it has no dissonant black metal chords at all. Also that it has a dry, thin guitar tone. Also, and this is primordial, NO blast beats!

What I'm NOT looking for: stuff that's also melodic but is heavy on tremolo and blasts (Unanimated; literally any melodic black metal like Dissection, Dawn, Vinterland or Sacramentum), stuff that is just atmospheric but has nothing on the riffing style (Tiamat, Swallow the Sun, Saturnus, In Mourning, Vehemence, In The Woods...), basically nothing that has really big wall of sound riffs with huge chords or effects or whatever (literally any post-metal/shoegaze/blackgaze like Agalloch or Deafheaven), or bands that sound like Opeth (Scythe, Gwynbleidd, Asgaut). Also, Morningrise. Just no.

The albums I've found the closest thus far are:

·         Dreichmere - Dispair the Withered Shadows

·         Autumn Requiem - As I Beheld the Blazing Glory of the Rising Dawn

·         Ophthalamia - A Journey in Darkness, Via Dolorosa

·         Orphaned Land - El Norra Alila

·         Garden of Shadows - Oracle Moon

·         Autumnal Winds - Venerari Sacra Mysteria

·         All 3 Obsequiae releases

·         The first 4 Katatonia releases (Jhva Elohim Meth, Dance of December Souls, Brave Murder Day, For Funerals to Come)

·         Anathema - The Crestfallen EP

·         October Tide - Rain Without End

·         Ablaze my Sorrows - If Emotions Still Burn

·         Ceremonial Oath - Carpet

·         Ancient Ceremony - Under Moonlight we Kiss

·         The Morningside - The Wind, The Trees and The Shadows of The Past

·         Sorrows Lament - ... When I'm Gone

·         Atropos - Créature Chthonienne

·         Ethnocide - Tearful demo

·         Empyrium – A Wintersunset…

·         In Flames - Lunar Strain

·         Fall of the Leafe – Storm of the Autumnfall

I should also mention Amorphis, Dark Tranquility, Edge of Sanity, Asphodelus, Fatal Embrace, Rotting Christ, and Eucharist, who don't really sound like what I'm looking for, save the odd song. Thanks in advance!

Edited by Orchidphile69 - 03 Aug 2024 at 4:11pm