(10.04.2011) Opeth @ Stubb's

I've been dreading posting about this, because quite frankly this was the most frustrating show I've been to in a long time. But, I feel I need to at least get the setlist posted, along with a couple comments. The show really doesn't deserve much more than that.

Katatonia opened. I had heard of them before, but never really heard much of their stuff. I was looking forward to them, since they have a pretty strong following and have overall been pretty well received critically. First song was pretty good, second was OK, and after that I realized that pretty much every song sounded the same. Not bad, but not remarkable. I have no idea how representative that set was of their catalog.

OK, Opeth's set:

01. The Devil's Orchard
02. I Feel The Dark
03. Face Of Melinda
04. Porcelain Heart
05. Pyre
06. The Throat Of Winter
07. Patterns In The Ivy II
08. Closure (preceded by Harvest teaser)
09. Slither
10. A Fair Judgement
11. Hex Omega
(break)
12. Folklore

OK, let's get the obvious out of the way: NOTHING HEAVY. ZERO. What??? Where the hell is the Opeth I know and love? I understand that they've gone a different direction with their most recent album, and I can respect that. I've actually grown to like the album quite a bit. But to completely abandon the heavy stuff boggles my mind, especially when they've previously always been very good about representing their work as a whole when they perform live. This time, power cords were few and far between, active drum work was sparse, and don't even bother looking for the death metal growl. It felt like a damn Indigo Girls show.

The shame is that, on a song by song basis, I really like most of the songs they chose to play. It was just the way they strung them together, the show never built any kind of momentum. I guess maybe if I had known ahead of time how their song selection was going to be, my expectation would have changed and it might have felt less infuriating. However, nothing could have prepared me for how much Akerfeldt was going to ramble on and on between the songs. Usually he's fairly chatty and funny, but this time it was way too much. Any time they might have started to pick up a little bit of steam, for example with the upbeat romping "Slither", the energy was quickly killed by his irritating blabbing. The pace of the show was just horrendous, enough that it unfortunately put a negative spin on the whole performance.

So, let's try to dig for some positives here. Like I said, I did like pretty much every song on an individual basis. There was a pretty heavy emphasis on the latest album, Heritage, accounting for 5 of the 12 songs, including my favorites in "I Feel The Dark", "The Devil's Orchard", and "Folklore". I loved hearing "Hex Omega", and "A Fair Judgment" is always a great choice. I was particularly surprised to hear them play "Patterns In The Ivy II", from the bonus disc of the special edition of Blackwater Park. "Face Of Melinda" and "Porcelain Heart" were OK, I think those songs are decent, but I could have done without them. In my mind, they signified the beginning of the disappointment in the show.

As far as the production, the sound was actually pristine, the best I've heard yet at an Opeth show. Granted, its tough to compare since the requirements for this show were scaled back. Its probably a lot easier when you don't have to worry about bass drum rolls, heavy distorted guitar, and heavy metal growls all washing into a wall of sound. But, to give them credit, everything was balanced very nicely, and Akerfeldt's vocals sounded incredible.

On the whole, while on paper it seems like a different, refreshing Opeth set, in reality it turned out to be mainly an exercise in frustration. And on a deeper level, this show bothered me far more than their major stylistic change on the latest album. Feeling the need to move on and progress creatively, I can totally understand, and respect. No true artist wants to get mired in creating the same thing over and over again, they want to master a broader skill set, produce a body of work that is diverse and varied. But this show seemed to make a more disturbing statement, that they not only wish to move on with their new creations, but want to distance themselves from their previous core aesthetic and material altogether. Perhaps that take on it is more doom-and-gloom than is warranted by one show, but its the one that that keeps stabbing at me in the wake of this disappointment.

The next time Opeth comes to town, I'll still be there, hoping to be rocked. But I'll be much more cautious in my expectations, and in my optimism.

Opeth - Heritage

01. Heritage (2:05)

02. The Devil's Orchard (6:39)

03. I Feel The Dark (6:40)

04. Slither (4:03)

05. Nepenthe (5:40)

06. Haxprocess (6:57)

07. Famine (8:32)

08. The Lines In My Hand (3:48)

09. Folklore (8:19)

10. Marrow Of The Earth (4:18)

11. Pyre (5:34)

12. Face In The Snow (4:04)

Seeing as I'm catching these guys live at Stubb's tonight, its only appropriate that I finally get off my ass and try to review this thing. I've been grappling with this album for a couple weeks now, and I've been putting off reviewing it because quite frankly I've been uncomfortable with the idea of committing myself to rigid opinion of it. Not something that usually bothers me.

To say that Heritage, Opeth's most recent offering, is polarizing would be the understatement of the year. Gone are the death metal vocals, the blast beats, the 10+ minute bone crushing opuses (opi?). In their place we now have swirling mellotrons, jazz-infused rhythm and percussion, even a flute makes an appearance. The clean vocals, which had taken 9 albums to work up to even a 50% share with the growl on the last album, 2008's Watershed, now reign supreme. What exactly in the hell is going on here?

That's not to say that this change is totally out of the blue. Over the past few albums, Opeth has continually worked toward a more and more progressive brand of metal. More mellow interludes, improved (and by now quite outstanding) clean vocals, more complex rhythm. Its just that up until now, Opeth's stylistic shift has been more about gradual change. Yes, a few years back they did produce Damnation, a 100% mellow, clean-vocal album. But that was tagged as more of a brief left-turn, an opportunity to do something completely different, almost a novelty. It was easy to accept, with the band's all-but-spelled-out assurance that the future still looked, more or less, heavy as shit.

In the case of Heritage, however, the stylistic upheaval seems to have a bit more gravitas. Strike that, a LOT more gravitas. Opeth is fully committed to this new sound, and in fact they seem majorly reinvigorated by the multitude of different directions available to them now. A sense of musical liberation absolutely permeates this album, and its this quality specifically that turned this particular skeptic into fanboy #1.

My first exposure to this album, along with pretty much everyone else, was the pre-album-release single "The Devil's Orchard". I thought it was OK, nothing particularly special, which in Opeth terms means I was essentially devastated. I wanted to be blown away, I wanted Opeth's newest track to pull me in, destroy me, spit me out, and leave me begging for more. I was left grasping at the notion that "The Devil's Orchard" was surely the oddball, and that the rest of the album would surely restore my faith. That idea was quickly dashed once I finally got my hands on the full album. I struggled through it the first time, unsure of exactly what I was listening to. Second time, same result. Third time through, not much better. At this point, I was starting to lose hope. There were a couple tracks that stood out as "good", a few as "tolerable", and a couple as "I never want to hear that again." But as tough as the going was, there was something, some quality about the album, that made me want to keep listening. While I was having trouble with the songs themselves, I was definitely caught by the organic sound of the album, and the sense of liberation that went along with it. It was the sound of artists creating exactly what they wanted to create, fans and critics be damned. And this made all the difference.

Massive understatement #2: this album is a grower.

Somewhere around the 5th or 6th time through, it all began to click. "The Devil's Orchard" had begun to feel pretty good, and "The Lines In My Hands" was definitely striking me the right way. I was also really digging the mellow bonus track "Face In The Snow". But these tracks are not particularly challenging, the former being a pretty straightforward rocker and the latter being a classic Opeth-style mellow number, complete with Akerfeldt's best crooning on the album. It was with "I Feel The Dark" that the tide really began to shift for the album as a whole. The acoustic intro with layered piano and mellotron, leading into a prominent plodding Mendez bassline, suddenly disrupted at about 3 minutes by a bout of heavy organ and guitar distortion, leading into alternating sections of acoustic twiddling and slow crunchy guitar, before fading out with some more layered mellotron, piano, and acoustic guitar. It all fit, impeccably. I began seeing it in the other tracks after that, and suddenly it was like I was listening to a whole new album.

As far as the individual tracks go, I would say that my favorites are "The Devil's Orchard" (ironic, I know), "I Feel The Dark", "Folklore", "Famine", and "Face In The Snow". "Heritage" and "Marrow Of The Earth" are short instrumentals, the former a beautifully executed instrumental piano piece, the latter consisting primarily of some quirky acoustic guitar. "Slither" is a fun romping ode to the late great Ronnie James Dio, and is probably the most out-of-place track on the album. "The Lines In My Hand" is the probably the easiest song to identify with for lovers of older Opeth, sounding a bit like a cut-down clean-vocal "Baying Of The Hounds". "Famine" is probably the most experimental track on the album, a sprawling prog-fest featuring guest percussionist Alex Acuna and some interesting flute placement, some cheesy and obvious (intro) and some fantastic and not-immediately-obvious (layered in toward the end of the song). "Nepenthe" and "Haxprocess" are really the only songs that I'm still working on. They're both pretty slow and deliberate, "Nepenthe" featuring an odd vocal melody that I can't quite come to terms with yet, and "Haxprocess" sounding very much like something left over from the Damnation recording sessions. Both songs may very well end up being tracks that I skip over, but, as with the rest of the album, both possess a subtle allure that keeps me listening, trying to find that hook or layer to pull me in.

Overall, I would say that this is probably Opeth's most ambitious work, and absolutely their bravest. Is it my favorite? Well, its still sinking in with me, but I feel pretty comfortable saying that no, its not ever going to be even close to my favorite. But its damn well earned my respect, and has bolstered my excitement for what this band can achieve in the future. According to Akerfeldt in the "Making Of Heritage" film that came with the album, typically everyone in the band is completely mentally and physically drained by the end of the recording process. With Heritage, this is the first time they actually feel renewed and excited about a new direction.

I can dig it.