OPETH — Blackwater Park (review)

OPETH — Blackwater Park album cover Album · 2001 · Progressive Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Stephen
Listening to Opeth's music can't be done while driving or in a happy mood, you have to focus and dedicate a specific amount of time to digest every aspect they offered here, but if you're able to enter the atmosphere created by the band, the experience is rewarding. "Blackwater Park" had received extremely-mixed receptions, from an elegant masterpiece status to rubbishy-bored album. After multiple listens, my opinion felt in between, above the borderline of mediocre, to be precise.

The strong point of this album is it has an excellent production, a perfect musical delivery by the band especially how Åkerfeldt alternated his vocal style from growl to clean, and most of the songs are great. However, couple of tracks are quite dull such as "The Leper Affinity" which just circled around and moves forward with no clear destination or the title track, probably the worst here, a lengthy track with an absolute boring arrangement.

The greatest tracks they made here are definitely "Bleak" and "The Funeral Portrait", no doubt about that. Take a look at how Opeth combined the acoustic and electric guitar forming a thrilling riffage on "Bleak", the smart switch of vocal, the melodic insertion, and even the jazzy short solo passage. On the other hand, "The Funeral Portrait" swayed on a progressive metal texture with an uptempo rhythm, dynamic riffs, and a lot of screaming vocals. I also like the slowtempo balladic experiment in "Harvest" and the bluesy solo is nicely done. The single, "The Drapery Falls", influenced by Pink Floyd with a gloomy background nuance and quite good but tends to be boring and flat when the growly part came in. My last fave track on this album is "Dirge For November", a dominating bass sound at the start before exploding to a heavier part with a beautiful melody lines.

The problem with this album is the repetitive pattern of acoustical/piano intro followed by an explosive rhythm, growl/clean vocal, sudden stop before fading out, everything is too predictable. And like I said at the start, this one is a mood-dependence album, usually it's very hard to listen to this album entirely at the same time, but you have to do that to grab the whole idea of "Blackwater Park". An acceptable 3.5 stars album, not more than that I guess.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Le bannissement Atmospheric Black Metal
CANTIQUE LÉPREUX
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tarantula Heart Sludge Metal
MELVINS
Buy this album from MMA partners
God Damned You To Hell Traditional Doom Metal
FRIENDS OF HELL
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Absence Melodic Death Metal
THE ABSENCE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Unextinct Technical Death Metal
HIDEOUS DIVINITY
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Fallen Ashes - Wage War (Official Lyric Video)
FALLEN ASHES
Bosh66· 7 days ago
EXISTENTIAL DEAD - Unreality (Single) 2024
EXISTENTIAL DEAD
Bosh66· 7 days ago
EXISTENTIAL DEAD - Cold Hands
EXISTENTIAL DEAD
Bosh66· 7 days ago
IRON MONKEY - Misanthropizer (Official Music Video)
IRON MONKEY
Bosh66· 10 days ago
??? (Losing ART) - "????" (Official Music Video) [HD]
漂浮者樂團
Bosh66· 10 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed