This CD makes me laugh. It takes itself so seriously, but doesn’t seem to understand that the audience has to be un-attuned to the genre of metal, opera, acoustic ballads, and progressive rock, because it expects the listener to easily reconcile Blackwater Park’s Laurel and Hardy mixture of all these elements. So, I like this CD at times, meaning at certain parts of the songs, when Opeth isn’t mixing genres, poorly. But that’s the problem right there. I can’t throw it on and just listen. I have to thrown it on and wonder what the fuck I am going to get next. Will I have to endure through some acoustic interlude while I sit in traffic, or listen to (generic) death vocals right before dropping off to bed. I could redeem these in-congruent genre mixes, if, well, they were actually orchestrated and written properly–well even, but they aren’t. It’s just hodgepodge. Enjoy!
Here’s a breakdown of individual tracks:
The Leper Affinity
Starts with a semi-okay piano melody that goes on for way too long. Boredom sets in before anything else. Many people describe this song as foreboding, assaulting, scary, as having a ritualistic feel. I say it’s funny and pedestrian.
Bleak
Presents a fairly “bleak” structure to start, then it gets bluesy or something, then a bunch of nonsense and ends with a breaking sound. Wish it would have been a permanent break. I feel bleak and wanting to listen to The Arctic Monkeys now or something.
Harvest
Mainly acoustic. I don’t remember this one much because it is, well, unmemorable. Why is this good? Why don’t I feel any compelling emotion for this?
The Drapery Falls
So here is where the real mess begins. This little tune is like a schizophrenic beast from hell. So if you like this sort of thing, this song has your name all over it. We get acoustic sections, pseudo metal sections (pseudo because they aren’t really that great of metal), then we come full -circle back to the intro lick. Lame lame.
Dirge for November
Do we all know what a dirge is? Yeah well, whatever. This song is a melange of mediocrity, with no real dirginess. Good luck.
The Funeral Portrait
Boring boring riffs on this one. I think that’s endemic throughout the album, except on this song the band seems to be trying to show off their “riff” capability via production. The solos towards the end are okay, but are immediately undone but the cute harmonizing vocals. triple lame.
Patterns in the Ivy
filler
Blackwater Park
Maybe, only maybe some redeeming part of the album only because we get metal for the majority of the song. Almost great.
