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Ghost Reveries

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The artwork was created after the completion of the album. Åkerfeldt commented on the artwork, saying: The major flaws of this album are the mellow songs, and more specifically Hours of Wealth and Atonement. It is not that they are outright bad, but totally unremarkable. Isolation Years is the one song that does not deal with the Occultism concept and is also mellow, and while it should perhaps not be in this album, it is a good song. The other problem is Reverie: Harlequin Forest, a song that starts great but doesn't keep the same quality over the minutes and is too repetitive. Not a bad song either, but would be immensely better if trimmed some.

Blabbermouth.Net". Roadrunnerrecords.com. Archived from the original on 3 December 2005 . Retrieved 14 January 2012.

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Silly listener, because right from that, Opeth went all in with growls, double bass, and heavy guitar chugging! I knew that this drive through Florida was going to be one to remember about a minute in. From there came “The Baying of the Hounds” and “Beneath the Mire” which are both absolute perfection. A flawless blend of savagery and beauty that we have come to expect from Opeth. Newcomer Wiberg shines with many organs and mellotrons, adding a whole new layer over the guitars and rhythm section. Isolation Years. Opeth sure can make ballads, and IY can prove that rough music, growls, and double-base can’t be the only thing a (metal) band’s capable of. Very good lyrics. Songs are way too long to be able to maintain the interest of the listeners. Unless you're one of those people who can listen to an entire Abruptum or Mortiis album without getting bored, then you can withstand this. However, not everyone has the attention-span of others. With the periodically changing styles, it makes it hard to concentrate on the actual music. You will feel yourself drifting to dreamland by the end of the second song.

Speaking of mellotron, it is here in abundance. Beneath The Mire, Hours of Wealth...nah forget it, all the songs have mellotron floating all over the place, and it's used quite well. That brings up another point: Opeth is really in touch with their prog side here. Mellotron everywhere, keyboards as well, lots of variety in the songs, creativity in heaps and mounds, great harmonies and technically difficult music, everything a 70s classic like Selling England By The Pound or Red has this album has just as much of. I'd even go so far as to say it's more creative than some of Genesis's efforts, and definitely ELPs. King Crimson and Yes still beat it out though, which is why I love them too.Ghost Reveries was named the best album of 2005 by Metal Hammer. [33] It was also ranked No. 1 on PopMatters "Best Metal Albums of 2005" [34] and on webzine Metal Storm. [35] Ghost Reveries appeared on many end of year lists, including Kerrang!, [36] Terrorizer, [37] Drowned In Sound [38] and The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll. [39] In a retrospective list, Loudwire named it the best metal album of 2005. [40] More importantly, the instrumentation is fantastic, Akerfeldt’s vocals a classic mix between clean singing and growls; neither of them have downhill after fifteen years. Martin Lopez’s versatile drumming never ceases to amaze as he works in excellent fills, rapid double bass, and engaging, original beats. The inclusion of ethnic drums in the album’s middle songs signifies just another influence in this incredibly diverse album. Ghost Reveries is teeming with great riffs, from the slow, soothing bass groove of Atonement, to the vicious, heavy assaults found during brief straight-up death metal portions of the longer songs, and The Grand Conjuration’s plain evil main riff. The keyboards add a new dimension to Opeth’s sound and provide more options for the band, notably that weird but catchy, enjoyable riff at the beginning of Beneath the Mire. The guitar solos are well-performed, technical, and impressive, though they tend to slide under the radar, not being the focal points of the songs. It’s been 10 years since the release of Ghost Reveries– something the band will mark by playing the album in its opulent entirety at the London Palladium this October. With hindsight, it sounds like the final chapter in the evolution of Opeth’s distinctive sound. They would veer off into more perverse territory on Watershed three years later, but at this point Ghost Reveries was simply the band’s next album and there was no intricate masterplan in place beyond the introduction of surging Hammond organs and shimmering Mellotrons played by Per Wiberg. Jurek, Thom (2005). "Ghost Reveries – Opeth". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 20 October 2017 . Retrieved 15 November 2017. What elevates all the aforementioned strengths to soaring heights is the performance aspect. While everyone is demonstrating great prowess and finesse, the shining star of Ghost Reveries is frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt. Even to this day, I’m baffled by the man’s vocal delivery. His clean singing voice is soothing, even ethereal at times. His growls are second to none. I mean, across the extreme musical spectrum, there are very few who come close but don’t quite reach such a level of demonic rendition.

Ghost Reveries displays some of the best song writing the band has put out to date, which is saying a lot. Opener, Ghost of Perdition, is a fine example of a song with almost permanent replay value, which in the end is what matters most. If you can still listen to an album months and years after buying it, the band has done something right. The Baying of the Hounds is another lengthy good listen but the album begins to slow down after that. Atonement is just sort of boring, not bad but doesn’t seem to fit properly with what’s around it and doesn’t offer any new aspects to the music. Hours of Wealth on the other hand is an acoustic song that does work really well. It sounds sort of like a Damnation highlight. Just as you thought it was safe to doze off and have a nap, your ass gets a hard beating by The Grand Conjuration. It’s the heaviest song on the album and offers up that death growl from Mikael Åkerfeldt that fans know and love. After this we get Isolation Years which is another all acoustic piece and a great conclusion to Ghost Reveries. One good point for the album, but it’s a thing Opeth always does: They are always on the count. The chorus of The Grand Conjuration, and Beneath the Mire prove that. I was hoping for a step closer to (and beyond) Deliverance as that was easily their most metallic offering. True, Ghost Reveries has its moments where it can be said to be more metallic than most of their other albums, but there’s just too much Damnation in here for my taste, and way too much filler. I’m still looking for some Opeth-music I can bang my head to. This just didn’t do it for me, sorry. Heh, The Grand Conjuration. This is the song that came out and everyone was like "OMG Opefth iz teh d00med!". There's about six minutes of good material here, dragged into ten. There's good drum work and keyboard work at 1:20. Then there's heavy, then light, then heavy, then light. It's a VERY typical Opeth song, sounds right off Still Life. It's got some killer heavy parts and good light parts, but it's about 2-4 minutes too long.The album only partly portrays a concept, not fully arranged in the poetic manner as previous releases such as "Still Life" and "My Arms, Your Hearse". "The Baying of the Hounds" is partially inspired by lyrics from the song "Diana" from Comus's album "First Utterance". Then comes "Beneath The Mire", starting with quite possibly the funkiest segment Opeth could ever produce - it sounds more like Farmakon, to be honest, who are usually like a jazzier, if less melodious clone of Opeth anyway. Mellotrons and funk drums flow behind Peter's on-off guitar riffage for about two minutes, and we then get Mikael's best heavy vocal melody of the album. A recurring blast beat from Lopez gives the edge Mikael needs here, before going into the proggy guitar and emotive, clean vocals for a while - "you'd cling to your pleasant hope, in it's twisted fascination." After this, comes Per on piano while Mikael has a short, sweet solo reminiscent of the one he gives in Porcupine Tree's "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here". Mikael switches to acoustic for a moment before leading us into the maelstrom once more - a great death scream and some inventive drumming bring us to another catchy, melodious section with heavy guitars and clean vocals. Finally, the guitars rise and fall like a tide, leading into an ending rich with off-kilter time-signatures and Pink Floyd style guitar experimentation. Another excellent song that shows the band's mature exploration of progressive themes. This is the new studio album from the Swedish Prog/Death Metal band Opeth and quite possibly the best yet. Now this is surprising because most bands tend to become worse with later albums but with Opeth they only seem to get better and better. They may one day be recognized as underground metal legends.

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