In my time of need (Opeth) (LP 3426 - 3429)

Opeth Damnation (CD, Music For Nations, 2003) *****  

Opeth Heritage (CD, Roadrunner Records, 2011) *****  

Opeth Pale Communion (CD, Roadrunner Records, 2014) ****  

Opeth Sorceress (CD, Nuclear Blast, 2016) ****  

Genre: Prog metal

Places I remember: Fives, Fopp, JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: In My Time Of Need (Damnation)

Gear costume: Chrysalis (Sorceress)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: Opeth started out as a death metal band from Sweden but have evolved into a prog metal band along the way. Although they are truly a band, the main man is very much Mikael Åkerfeldt. He composes the songs, sings them, and plays lead guitar.

I did have a few of their pre and post-Damnation albums, but I couldn't take the death-growling vocal style and flicked them off to Real Groovy.

So, we take up the story with Damnation. All the vocals are sung cleanly and it is all the better for it. Steven Wilson's influence is obvious (he produced this one) and Opeth are again all the better for it.

The sound is heavily influenced by seventies prog bands like Camel, King Crimson and Caravan. It's mellow, melancholy, deeply reflective numbers all feature melodic electric and acoustic guitars, with even some piano and lashings of Mellotron. Oh, hell yeah!!

The next purchase that I ended up keeping wasn't until Heritage - nearly ten years later. Again, the clean vocals were the single biggest reason for my returning to Opeth albums. That and the decidedly progressive nature of the album.

I especially like the embracing of piano, mellotron and Hammond organ on this album. The music reminds me of Deep Purple and Focus at times (high praise!).

The AllMusic review summed it well: Heritage, for its many excesses and sometimes blurry focus, is a brave album. It opens the door for Opeth to pursue many new directions and reinvent themselves as a band.

Pale Communion and Sorceress were their next albums, both continuing the prog rock leanings. On Pale Communion there are even harmonies applied to the vocals. On Sorceress the Black Sabbath/ Deep Purple influence is more obvious and it has heavier leanings that the other two albums (Jethro Tull are obvious on the previous two).

Where do they all belong? They've gone back to death growls on their latest album, although In Cauda Venenum (the 4th in their prog era) sounds like an album I need to find.

I'd give up all my life to be in the book of heavy metal (Dream Evil)

I had a look at the stats button of this blog and I was staggered to find out that the most popular blog post I'd done (and it wasn't even close) was one on DEEP PURPLE.

I checked out the post and it was a run down on my favourite Purple moments.

Coincidentally (part 1) GK's latest post was about the purps Smoke On The Water. Coincidentally (part 2) I am currently listening to Rapture Of The Deep (a DP album from 2005 I think). Coincidentally (part 3) the new Opeth album has moments that remind me more of DP than it does Opeth.

Their new album is called Heritage and is vying for first place in my affections with Damnation as my favourite Opeth album.

There are hints of DP as I said (the hammond organ/guitar mix), but there is also a return to that moody mellotron sound and the jazz/rock fusion of bands like Return to Forever. The over-riding feeling is that the erstwhile black metaller boys have clearly been listening to a lot of King Crimson lately.

It makes for a heady brew and the album is revealing more and more with each listen.

It is certainly a very different band sound compared to their metal classics like Blackwater Park, Watershed and Ghost Reveries.

Heavy Metal. Oh why do I love you so?

We've been in the middle eastern emirate of Abu Dhabi for about a year now and I've bought loads of CDs as is my vice.

Many of these fit within the broad expanses of the Heavy metal genre.

Joining my collection in New Zealand when we eventually return home will be albums by the following:

Russell Allen (of Symphony X)
Avenged Sevenfold
Black Mountain
Black Sabbath
Black Stone Cherry
Coheed and Cambria
Deep Purple
Def Leppard
Devin Townsend Project
Enchant
The Gathering
Hammerfall
Iced Earth
Iron Maiden
James LaBrie (of Dream Theater)
Lacona Coil
The Man Eating Tree
Mastodon
Steve Morse Band
Mostly Autumn
Ted Nugent
Opeth
Queens of the Stone Age
Rainbow
Riverside
Scorpions
Soundgarden
Stratovarious
Symphony X
Uriah Heep

That's quite a list for 12 months of off shore collecting.

The obsession with excessively amplified blues rock music began way back in the early seventies with Black Sabbath's Paranoid and Master Of Reality albums, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin.

Three of the four are represented in the list above!!

What do I still like about the genre 40 something years later?

Extended guitar and organ wig out duels, screaming banshee vocals, loud pounding drums, guitar riffs, and heads down boogie action ddoes it fer me.

By the way - the DP album Rapture Of The Deep is pretty good and a worthwhile addition on the whole. No Jon Lord so there is some synthesizer as well as the organ. Steve Morse's guitar is a little restrained than usual (no heroic guitar solos on this one), and Ian Gillan is quite mannered in his vocals these days - no screaming lung busters, but quite acceptable all the same. His main problem (and the band's) is his lyrics which, with a few exceptions on Machine Head, have always been either feeble, juvenile or both.

The strengths of the band are found in Ian Paice's drumming, Roger Glover's bass and the collective distinctive, DP sound. Still crazily good after all these years, even if a little diluted in 2005.

Let creation reveal its secrets by and by (Jackson Browne)

This post's album cover round up theme is -  nature. Often this means a tree (or trees) or a sylvan glade. Clouds are also a biggy, so are waves (of dreams). You can't beat a moody landscape!