Opeth - Watershed (Rare Green Marbled 2 vinyl set, sealed) - Record Store Day

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Up for a bidding is the already out of print Record Store 2014 edition of OPETH - WATERSHED in a double LP version on beautiful GREEN MARBLED vinyl. Gatefold jacket in perfect condition, no corner dings, bends, etc. New and sealed.

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Fame can be both boon and bane. And in the recent past, it has served as the latter to a good majority of metal bands that all of a sudden want to cash in on their success. And for a band like Opeth, success could have easily gotten to their heads. So did they fall prey to it?

Most definitely not. Despite all the murmurs about the line-up changes and how it could be the path to perdition for the band, Opeth have snubbed all nay-sayers with possibly their darkest and most epic album till date, Watershed. Watershed sees the debut of Fredrik Akesson (guitars) replacing Peter Lingdren, and Mikael Akerfeldt’s Bloodbath partner Martin Axenrot replacing Martin Lopez on drums. The album opens with the quintessential ballad ‘Coil’ that soon gives way to the blazing ‘Heir Apparent’. The glaring aspect of this song is the way Opeth have used modern style pinches and fast riffing and fused that into their already trademark blues and jazz inspired songwriting. And the sheer speed of the song at times takes you by the neck. Add to that the dark, almost black metal-like aura and you pretty much realize how versatile Mikael Akerfeldt is with songwriting. The song that takes the award though, is ‘The Lotus Eater’. Starting with a VERY deceptive happy tune hummed by Akerfeldt the song suddenly becomes this blazing inferno of blast beats. YES, blast beats! Blast beats with Akerfeldt singing clean. The next track ‘Burden’ is another ballad which ends with an acoustic riff being played while the guitar is continually tuning down. That is precisely what is so special about this album, the innovation. It seems Mikael Akerfeldt has drawn inspiration from all those various genres he likes, including a greater inspiration from death metal.

The album opens strong with easily the most beautiful intro to any album ever, Coil. Well,, though its over three minutes long, I would consider it pretty short for Opeth's standards and thus an intro song for this album. The classic acoustic guitar playing begins the album, as Åkerfeldt's voice softly eases us through the piece. It slowly rises in emotion as the keyboard builds up with some folky chords and the guest female singer quells and calms the song down till it ebbs away and lets the main first song explode on forth.

Heir Apparent quickly brings in the classic death metal intensity of previous Opeth albums. The ominous guitar riffs and heavy drumming quickly turns the tides of the album. Mikael's death metal growls are as good as ever. Deep, hoarse, guttural, its the voice of a beast and he lets out his fury without retaining any passion. The death metal riffs are a chaotic gale that only die down when acoustic passage are introduced but build up again for more death metal moments.

Mikeal does alot of uplifting clean vocals for most of the album with some few death metal growl sections tied in with some unsettling guitar parts. This is perhaps the most clean vocals on an Opeth album next to Damnation. The solos are typically rocking, but not insanely shredtastic. They at a good pace and they are more of classic rock then of heavy metal

The drumming is very awesome on this record. Sure it isn't the inventive jazzy rhythms of Martin Lopez but he has skills. Especially on the metal moments. He does some sick double kicks and fierce drum blasting. He does some really crazy shit at some points, where I had to re listen to just try and figure out what the hell just went happened.

The keyboards are so much better. They weren't really bad on Ghost Reveries, but I think they were not really used well in terms of Opeth's sound. They seem too intrusive to the feel of the music and just gave off a silly faux goth vibe. My conjecture is that they just needed to work with each other a little more to really understand how they can use the keyboard elements to work with the Opeth style. I think that is why they are so well done on here. They use some really choice "instruments" to use on the album. Many of the sounds used are building string choirs, folky wind chords, bell pads, and even some rock organ going on. Overall they are used more tastefully this time and enhance the atmosphere of the songs.

The guitar riffs as already mentioned are solid continuation of the Opeth death metal riffage. They are heavy, complex, and inventive, as always. There is also some dabbing in dissonance and just unsettling music themes that make the entire album like some dark soundtrack to a 1800's conspiracy. Perhaps the music video to Porcelain Heart has gotten to my head but every time I listen to the album I get that imagery of some old 19th century mansion and landscape, with some dark shit happening. Silly, right? But this album really does that musically. The band seems to have put some different folkish influences in the acoustic parts that give a fresh vibe to the music. The classic rock influences feel a bit abstract but in the end flows well with the music.

Opeth has once again made an amazing album that shows that the band has plenty of steam. The album stays true to the Opeth style but this time it sounds fresh and exhilarating. This would definitely make any newcomer to this band be a fan in no time.