The two greatest albums in the history of metal are not, as you might expect, written by Black Sabbath, Metallica, Iron Maiden, or any of the other regularly mentioned groups in the history of classic metal. As great as those groups are, and as important as they are to the two greatest albums I referenced earlier, they can't possibly contend with Mastodon's Leviathan and Opeth's Blackwater Park.
All good artistic work has identifiable influences. No man exists in a vacuum, and every member of every band in the world has his/her own favorite band which influences the sound which they produce. The decent bands manage to mimic their favorites, and the degree to which it is good mimicry dictates the degree to which it is enjoyable. A band like Dream Theater, thus, provides superb mimicry of bands like Maiden, Metallica, Rush, Yes, and Pantera. This mimicry is excellent, but due to the lack of a truly original sound and identity, Dream Theater remains a very good band, rather than a truly great one. The vast majority of bands, however, fall even beneath this threshold, showing themselves incapable of mimicking a bands style while writing new lyrics, melodies, etc. in the genre, and thus are merely average or poor.
Opeth and Mastodon, on the other hand, manage to work in a wide variety of influences, mix them together in their creative process, and output work that is both an homage to their favorites, while also producing a voice that is completely unique to them. As I've reviewed Leviathan before (linked above), this review will focus on Opeth's masterpiece, Blackwater Park.
Swedish death metal band Opeth, the brainchild of musical savant Mikael Akerfeldt (I'm missing some weird Swedish punctuation in there somewhere), manage to achieve the very heights of death metal brilliance in Blackwater Park, but the story can't begin there. The story starts with their release Orchid in 1995, which represented a shot heard round the world at death metal. In an era in which death metal had become obsessed with a race to the very heaviest and most brutal sound, combined with the most shocking of lyrics, following the basic formula of Death's Scream Bloody Gore (1987), Opeth chose to follow the template of later Death records like Human (1991) and Individual Thought Patterns (1993) to combine the brutality of death metal with the oddball sound of progressive music. Unlike a band like Dream Theater, however, who had been combining metal with prog for years before this, however, Opeth managed to create a gorgeous and immediately recognized synthesis of the genres that both pays homage to those genres, and is uniquely Opethian (sp?).
Yet something was still missing on Orchid, as well as its followup records Morningrise (1996), My Arms, Your Hearse (1998), and Still Life (1999). That something was production value. Following, perhaps not intentionally, the formula laid by 1990s Scandinavian metal, the production on these records is, to be kind, garbage. The songwriting is all excellent, yet the sound quality is muddy and unclear, making it challenging to listen to without noticing the lack of quality in recording and production.
Blackwater Park (2001) shatters this barrier entirely. Produced by the tremendously talented Steven Wilson (of Porcupine Tree fame), Blackwater Park represents a true synthesis of one of the greatest songwriters in metal history alongside flawless production that highlights and draws out the brilliance in writing and performance that composes the record. Introductory track The Leper Affinity shows clearly that Opeth have all the makings of the great death metal bands, but a unique quality to their sound that puts them heads and shoulders above the rest. Picking other great songs from this record is challenging, as the record lacks even one boring second of music, but if forced, I would have to say the hauntingly beautiful The Drapery Falls, and of course, the chill-giving brutality of the title track, one of the finest concluding tracks in music history.
Blackwater Park is a must-listen for anyone with ear drums and a love for great music. I give it a 10/10.
-TRO
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