Prog, Yes , Opeth

The wide ranging discussion on the definition of prog below was most informative but instead of the two hundred or so (and counting) sub genres let me assist in a simplification. There is Yes music and the rest.......You knows it clarts!

Secondly, the discussion about Opeth, well, Damnation sure has its moments especially the opening track window pane.I read a review in Classic Rock two years ago and bought this album on the strength of that. It was a most welcome intro into death metal only without the death and well no metal either really. A very pleasing if a little gloomy album. I then heard when the drapery falls on this site.A magnificent opus. If this is death metal i thought then i'm in....the growls were a little silly but the lighter parts gave it balance and so i bought Blackwater park.

Now the lyrics for the first two tracks ..something about lepers or something (yeah but no but yeah) and bleak have the silliest lyrics of all time. They now officially challenge Vogon poetry as the worst in the universe  here is a sample

We entered Winter once again
Naked, freezing from my breath
‘Neath the lid, all limbs tucked away
This coffin is your abode from now and onwards

Your body is mine to avail
Such a tragic sight you are
Slave under my creed
Spurring me with those tears

I am beyond death
Midst a dreaming affinity
Saving strength now, faint whispers
Come erotic communion in its splendour

Fever mirrored ghosts
Night-time consolation, cross the line
Draw murder into art
Sleep inside through days
 

Utter and complete bollocks! 

However i must add that the tracks Harvest Patterns in the Ivy and the drapery falls are musically excellent even though the lyrics for Harvest are Dire, really bad makes Vogon works sound like Kipling.

So my excursion into death metal ends there i think. The growling is just silly the lyrics awful but some of the music is highly crafted which makes Opeth an interesting band, but not worth exploring the deathier stuff.

And before you start on Andersons lyrics don't bother because i am not humble nor prone to humility none of this is opinion it is fact! ........ ( oh yes it is!) .........(and the same to you too!)

This line is pretty silly:

"Those who turn the leaves wither like a flower" (Ayreon: Actual Fantasy, confused leaves with pages)

I agree too, as far as growling goes there is none better . But those Lyrics!

For great Lyrics i always preferred bands Like the Smiths and Prefab Sprout. For daft lyrics Echo and the Bunnymen were quite open that they just wrote any thing that rhymed and sounded good. But the greatest achievement must have been the cocteau twins whose lyrics were inconsequential as Liz frazer just turned them into a soundscape quite brilliantly.

SomethingGood wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: This line is pretty silly: "Those who turn the leaves wither like a flower" (Ayreon: Actual Fantasy, confused leaves with pages) have you never heard the expression "turning over a new leaf"?

Yeah but no but yeah ,, it doesnt work in the Ayreon example does it ?

Opeth's lyrics are purely aesthetic, and that's that. They fit perfectly in the context of the band and albums.

goose wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: SomethingGood wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: This line is pretty silly: "Those who turn the leaves wither like a flower" (Ayreon: Actual Fantasy, confused leaves with pages) have you never heard the expression "turning over a new leaf"? I've never heard it before, but I looked it up and it doesn't apply, because the Ayreon song is about a book, and it's "leaves". A leaf means a page.   http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Leaf, definition 3.

All the definitions that I could find don't list that meaning. Is it commonly used in contemporary english? I think that the first definition is much more common, and saying "turn the leaf" instead of "turn the page" is at least unusual.

goose wrote: It is archaic, and it'd be strange if someone said it in conversation, but it doesn't look out of place in a song. Also, I think it's used to add depth to the withering flower image later on. I'm sure there's another song that has something like "leaves of a book" in one of the lines, but I've no idea what it is.

I admit that "leaves" also sounds better than "pages" in that context. Also, it's an archaic book they're talking about

yeah but no but yeah but no but yeah but i dont know but yeah maybe but no but sometimes but maybe but defintely but yeah.You were going out with mandy withers Colin you two timing........!

I would like to see Opeth use lyrics like this , far more contemporary!