Despite loving prog, and metal, Opeth never clicked with me, and I've given it a damn good effort!

I’ve met so many people who have had experiences similar to mine, where an absolute abhorrence and avoidance of Cookie Monster vocals has meant that we should not even have been approaching Opeth. And yet, from Blackwater Park onwards, every album they released I would be at a listening post in a record store trying to get my head around the music, and ultimately failing because of the vocals. Ugh! Horrendous. No matter how much I liked whatever else I might hear, those harsh vocals ruined it all for me.

Strangely, I expected to like Damnation (given it featured no harsh vocals), but it didn’t really appeal to me, and I was drawn more to Deliverance - and repelled in equal measure. At the time I thought I was alone in perversely returning to something that clearly wasn’t for me. I was never going to like those vocals. Since the advent of social media (or, at least as I was late to coming to it, since I joined the social media bandwagon), I have discovered I was not alone.

Opeth has led many listeners on a merry dance, like a Pied Piper drawing us back time and time again, seemingly against our own best interests. There’s no way you could say that for The Flower Kings.

I still don’t like harsh vocals. I doubt I ever will. But I can tolerate them now, and so much so that not only have I now bought much of Opeth’s discography, but I have continued to explore the world of extreme metal. Opeth were like a gateway drug, and once I could get past my aversion and revulsion of harsh vocals, a whole new musical world opened up. There’s more in it that I don’t like (and possibly never will), but I’m grateful to Opeth for giving me that key.

Regardless of the musical talent of any of the three bands here, Opeth deserve to be number one because they have broadened the musical horizons of so many.

Wow, what do you have against the Flower Kings? Too retro sounding? Just wondering.

Well you took a lot less words to say how I feel. My mum always did accuse me of having. Verbal diarrhoea....

Heritage is my favourite of the Opeth albums sans growls, but my overall favourite is probably Ghost Reveries. I have a feeling, though, that it might be because that was the album where the band finally clicked for me, and where I finally overcame my aversion to the harsh vocals.

I think, objectively, Watermark is probably a better album that Ghost Reveries - but my heart overrules my head here, and I’ll go for Ghost Reveries every time!

I'm actually a big fan of a few Flower Kings albums, namely the Roine Stolt eponymous 1994 record, the band's first two records, and most especially Banks of Eden. They don't interest me quite as much as a band like Änglagård, whose music I find to be at least slightly less retro prog, though still heavily influenced by 70s prog, and whose composition and production just sounds fresher to me—couldn't tell you exactly why. However, I still think The Flower Kings are a great band who have some great records.

My problem with The Flower Kings is records like Stardust We Are, Flower Power, Unfold the Future, and Paradox Hotel—these lengthy albums that clock in well past 2 hours and for me just feel like they drag on endlessly. To me, these albums represent many of the problems with prog rock—these massive "epic" compositions that wander aimlessly over the course of two CDs and don't really get anywhere. There's a reason that Banks of Eden is my favorite Flower Kings record—it's very musically excellent and satisfying while remaining more succinct, clocking in at under an hour. I enjoy The Flower King and Back in the World of Adventures, but even with those records I start to see a little bit of the issue that surfaces on their double albums—the band is just trying to put too much music into one record.

Now, once again, that's not to say that I dislike the Flower Kings—I actually really enjoy a lot of their music. However, largely for the reasons listed above, for me they don't nearly approach the tier of bands like Änglagård or Opeth.

Oh wow, what a strong match between the three. Really, really great stuff - but for different reasons.

Änglagård surely takes the top spot for me. First, all three albums are gold standard. Second, I still think it's the "Best" post-70s prog group, if I were to pick one. No, I'm not an expert - I agree there might be a band I would find as magnificent as Änglagård somewhere out there, but it's unlikely. On a more personal level, it really helped to reinvigorate my father's interest in prog and set him out on a journey to find more stuff, that's how he learnt to appreciate dozens of "new bands" in 1990s-2000s, which - in turn - opened my eyes some more. Listening to Änglagård was a powerful experience back then and it stays relevant after so many years. I just don't do it on a regular basis to "save it" a bit; twice a year at most.

The Flower Kings have, I think, one of the richest discographies in modern prog, and some material is extremely picturesque and heart-warming. I'm only familiar with 1995-02 stuff (1994 if we count Stolt solo as TFK), so I can't really pick them.

Opeth... Opeth is a fascinating case. I enjoy Orchid to Watershed tremendously, that's a nine album run (!!!) and they're all so different. On surface it's always a blend of death metal, prog, acoustic stuff with a pinch of ambient, but I think all labels undersell them. This is the one I'm listening to the most. If I have any complaints, it's that some songs would be better off as 100% pure metal mammoths, not polluted with softer sections/downtempos... but it's nitpicking. I could discuss Opeth for days.

That's exactly it. They take so many elements from the 70s classics without adding anything interesting of their own. Take an overly retro sound and bloat each album runtime to 1-2 hours, and it gets unbearable after a while.

To me, bands like Flower Kings and Simon Says represent all that is awful about prog throwbacks. Let's not add any of our own defining characteristics to this genre, but instead ape our influences to the nth degree and make the finished product twice as tedious as before! 

1 - Anglagard

2 - Opeth

3 - TFK

1. Anglagard

2. The Flower Kings

A very distant third.....

3. Opeth

Anyway, Opeth.

Lol, it's not quite even anymore.