OPETH — Deliverance (review)

Album · 2002 · Progressive Metal

3/5 · 2017-04-08
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First impressions aren’t always the best nor the most reliable. When they coincide with predetermined expectations, the chance of disappointment runs high. With eight of Opeth’s 12 albums in my collection, I went ahead and finally ordered the two albums, “Deliverance” and “Damnation”. For both albums I had already established a notion of what to expect: “Deliverance” being the heaviest Opeth album yet and “Damnation” being more prog rock and a precursor to the much-derided “Heritage” album, which I actually love. By now I had established that songs like “Serenity Painted Death”, “Funeral Portrait” and “The Grand Conjuration” were among my favourite Opeth songs, loving them for their riffs, moods and terrifying vocals. I had high hopes that “Deliverance” would give me even greater chills and shivers.

Alas, my first listen to the album was not how I expected it would be. There was something amiss. “Wreath” tumbles in with a rapid drum intro and hammers into the heavy chords while Mikael Akerfeldt’s vocals deliver a shredding roar, which should have set my arteries quivering. But what about that guitar sound? “Blackwater Park” had reached a pinnacle in Opeth’s guitar sound exploration, a full, rich, and heavy sound. On “Wreath” the guitar sounds dry and lacking bass. The title track follows and though it features some typical Opeth heavy-acoustic-heavy alternating, the song goes right over my head the first couple of listens. “A Fair Judgement” strikes me as the most honest Opeth song yet, working in soft and loud, gentle and heavy in a way that is typical of Opeth’s style, but it was only after a few listens that this song’s significance set in for me: it’s the track to least sound like Opeth recording an Opeth album without having their hearts really set on it. “For Absent Friends” is a relaxing instrumental, nothing out of the ordinary for an Opeth album until you recall that this is the heavy album!

Only two songs left to go, and during my first listen I was up to here disappointed that I wasn’t finding the kind of songs I had imagined. “Master’s Apprentices” starts off promising with a simple heavy, pounding riff and a very good ripper kind of riff, and my hopes are up! However, it proves a few listens later still have me trying to decide if the song is fantastic or forgettable in places. It’s the final track, “By the Pain I See in Others” that scores with me at last. Here’s a heavy Opeth track that includes much of what I enjoy about their music, right up to the waltz part. But then the song ends and the final note is sustained for a few tens of seconds, just held at low volume until some amplifier noise ends the music with 3:13 still left in the track! A hidden track? Unfortunately, yes, there’s a hidden track (two actually) of Mikael singing a kind of Indian mystic tune backwards, the first coming in with 1:50 remaining and lasting some 43 seconds, and the second one coming with 0:35 left in the track. I am not a fan of hidden tracks as they usually occur after long gaps of blank space and usually don’t contribute anything to the parent track. I wish they could just be unmarked bonus tracks; it makes it so much easier to manage the songs and make mixed playlists.

There are times when I listen to this album and think it’s not so bad and other times when I almost become irritated with the music if I don’t tune out altogether. I realize the reason why is because of three things. The first is the guitar sound. Dry, lacking bass, and not really what I like in a guitar sound especially considering albums that came before and after. The second is that there are few really good riffs on this album. Opeth frequently go for complex, progressive riffs or really effective simple heavy riffs. There are no memorable complex riffs for my ears on this album and the simple heavy riffs just don’t have the wallop and punch that other albums contain. Finally, perhaps it’s because there was a conscious effort to write the more progressive/acoustic/folk side out of this album and save it for “Damnation” that I feel the music on “Deliverance” just doesn’t live up to Opeth standards. Had this been my first Opeth acquisition it is questionable whether or not I would have taken up such an interest in the band as I have now.

I have found now that I enjoy the songs much more when they have been removed from the album and put on mixed playlists, such as ones that include one song from each album. I also think it would be possible to make one very good album selecting the better material from the two albums.

Every band in my collection whose entire studio catalogue has been welcomed into my house has an album or two that are not all together interesting to me. Opeth’s “Deliverance” is not so bland; however, the album still lacks flavour in my opinion. Whether the band was trying to progress its sound, or Steven Wilson was too influential, or they were focusing more attention on “Damnation” I can’t say. There are interesting parts but for me the album is truly missing something.