OPETH — Damnation (review)

Album · 2003 · Non-Metal

3.5/5 · 2017-04-08
voila_la_scorie

My first Opeth purchase was “Heritage” and I loved it. I still do. Though back in the day when I got that album, I still wasn’t keen on death vocals. I read about “Damnation” and got the impression it was a great Opeth album and a telltale work presaging things to come after 2010. Firing up the album, “Window Pane” instantly caught my ear and I was ready to soak up the sounds. But after that first track my attention could not hold on enough and the album played through with me hardly noticing anything.

I played it all again and wondered why it was such a mellow and unexciting album. At least with "Heritage" there was this dark and sometimes heavier side of Opeth. There was tension, subtlety, dynamic. This album seemed to be steeped in languid melancholy.

By the third listen I was starting to notice when I heard the Porcupine Tree influences. It wasn’t until I began pulling individual songs off and putting them on mixed playlists that I began to enjoy the songs more. Hearing these laid back tunes in between Opeth’s more energetic work made the music stand out more. Most of the tracks soon became noteworthy because they are each unique from one another and sound individually crafted. “In My Time of Need” features flooding Mellotron, “Death Whispered a Lullaby” is a strong retro piece with some Porcupine Tree-like guitar solos, and “Closure” has some creative percussion near the end as well as some almost creepy and foreboding clean guitar riffs. Moving on, “Hope Leaves” is so mellow and soft but nevertheless still may infect the musical minds of listeners. “To Rid the Disease” again includes Mellotron and perhaps even some real strings, plus some simple and pretty piano. After several listens, my opinion of this album has gone from too slow and boring to a rather decent effort. Only the last two tracks slip by with my mind lost and not focused on the music at all. “Ending Credits” is a simple instrumental with a lead guitar solo, which is good but not a highlight for me, and “Weakness” is so sparse in instrumentation that it’s austere.

It has taken me some time and a several good listens to appreciate “Damnation” at last. I can now also hear how Porcupine Tree influenced Opeth just as Opeth influenced Steven Wilson to add heavy guitar riffs to his band’s songs from “In Absentia” onward. Given my lack of warmth toward “Deliverance”, I wonder now if it wasn’t better to make one album with only the best material from “Damnation” and “Deliverance” instead of two separate albums. With both sides of the band featured on one disc, it’s possible the resulting album would better represent what Opeth have established for themselves. One reason why I love albums like “Still Life”, and “Blackwater Park” and “Ghost Reveries” is because there’s such a natural flow in the mixing up of the music. A D&D album might have been more in line with what fans love about the band, though I can’t fault the band for trying something different. Perhaps it was an idea that sounded better in theory.

“Damnation” takes a bit of sinking into but it is a rewarding album eventually. That is if you don’t just love it form the start anyway. Some people really praise this effort. I feel the parts are mostly more enjoyable than the whole.