OPETH — Blackwater Park (review)

Album · 2001 · Progressive Metal

4.5/5 · 2017-04-01
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“Opeth are one of those bands who are great for starting arguments simply because they exist and for what they do.”

This quote comes from a Pitchfork review of the re-release of “Blackwater Park” and it struck me as hitting the mark right on. In preparation for my own review of this monumental album, I read a number of reviews on other web sites and I found no shortage of haters. In fact, there seem to be three types of reviewers who’ve expressed their opinions of this album. The Gusher has nary a bad thing to say about it. It’s the best metal album ever. Everything from the vocals to the heavy guitars to the drumming to the acoustic parts to Steven Wilson’s hairstyle at the time are excruciatingly perfect. The Take Two Steps Back review treats this album as a roughly decent package albeit with a number of shortcomings. “Don’t get me wrong,” the reviewers say, stating that it’s good enough but a little overrated. The Panner tells us that this album is boring and pointless. Why so many long, meandering mid-tempo guitar riffs? Why does this track suddenly go acoustic for four bars and then goes right back to metal as if nothing happened? And what’s with this progressive, atmospheric, clean-vocal, moody tripe? Not even one decent blast beat! Rubbish!

Some people even go on to mock Opeth fans as if loving the band’s music says that their development in metal appreciation is stunted or retarded. Well, I have been frequently told that my taste in music is weird or whatever, so I don’t hold anything against what other people deem deeply satisfying even if they are Beliebers or Kanye West fans. It’s music and if you love it and colours your life then go on and dig it.

As for “Blackwater Park”, let’s take a look at some figures. Checking over eleven lists ranking Opeth albums (I do this kind of thing because it helps me explore a band’s catalogue more deeply – cough, cough, anal me, cough), “Blackwater Park” has an average rank of 1.9, which is the highest average of all 12 studio albums. So yes, fans of the band, fanatics or not, generally agree that this is a great piece of work. (Metal fans tend to rate it higher than prog fans). Furthermore, MetalSucks polled a wide range of people in the music industry, from musicians to producers to writers, etc. to ask them to name the top 21 metal albums of the 21st century, and “Blackwater Park” came in at #3 (“Ghost Reveries” was #10). So in spite of the fact that this album is boring with long meandering riffs and pointless acoustic interludes, it seems to stand pretty tall. Hey, I can see it’s not for everyone.

One reason I can see why this album gets so much love is that it combines the heaviness of “My Arms, Your Hearse” and the more complex song structure and riffage of “Still Life”. This is the pinnacle of that leg of the Opeth journey. With Steven Wilson producing, the sound is also richer and broader than the more compacted bombast of MAYH or the slightly dried out sound of “Still Life” in some parts (I feel it’s like checking up on your delicious soup and finding a skin has formed). The album is loud and the aggressive, heavy parts are really in your face if not sledge hammering your buttocks. Parts of the album really lay on that aggression, too. “The Leper Affinity”, much of the title track, parts of “Bleak” and my personal favourite “Funeral Portrait” are really massive; the riff that comes in at 1:16 in “Funeral Portrait” is so kick ass - my favourite Opeth riff of all! Yet Opeth would not be who they claim to be without acoustic breaks which are always a part of the song-writing formula. Track three, “Harvest”, is an all-strummed acoustic number and it will remind you that the third track on “Still Life”, “Benighted”, was also an acoustic track. “The Drapery Falls” begins acoustic but then soon turns toward the heavy guitars again, while “Patterns in the Ivy” is a rather pretty though sombre acoustic guitar/piano instrumental.

With all these acoustic parts and clean vocals, not to mention Steven Wilson’s vocal contribution in “Bleak”, plus the fact that there are no really speedy, thrashy parts despite the heaviness, and that the songs tend to be mostly between 7 and 12 minutes, I can understand why some death metal fans would call this a wankers’ album. I could also mention the frequent use of sustained guitar notes to create atmosphere and lots of long, open-chord riffs that are iterated not four times but six (just to stretch out the song length claim the detractors) and the turn-off factor for those who prefer short, blasting death metal becomes that much more apparent. The only thing everyone seems to agree upon is that Mikael Akerfeldt has awesome death vocals.

As for my own opinion, I liked this album when I first got it, but it has only been recently that Opeth’s entire catalogue has finally clicked with me and I can now really sink into every album. That said, there’s one track on here that I consider the runt of the litter and that’s “Dirge for November”. It’s not Mikael’s frail vocal bit at the beginning that deflates this song for me, nor is it the beautiful acoustic and clean electric part that follows. And when the melodic distorted guitars come in, it’s all just part of another Opeth song. But the death growl part seems to dwell on the same repeated open-chord riff over and over before a slight change promises something different and rewarding only to circle back to repeating that riff. If it weren’t for the vocals and the lyrics it would sound pretty redundant. Then the song wraps up with a bit of clean guitar that runs through a passage of repeated chords and notes and gives the impression of concluding and thus making me think, “Oh, well, not the most exciting track but, ehh, it’s okay,” and then it repeats one more time! I suppose it’s not so bad at times but given that this album so frequently opens a full can of whoop-ass, “Dirge for November” can’t help but sounding a less than spectacular. That’s alright because “Funeral Portrait” comes right up next. Yeah!!!

The best metal album ever? I wouldn’t go that far. It’s not even my favourite Opeth album. But “Blackwater Park” is without question an essential album in the band’s catalogue.