DELIVERANCE

In Deliverance, Opeth came with the most heavy, energetic and dark sound ever experienced by the band, while materializing their peak force. Acoustic guitar is quite less prominent, taking away the somewhat grandiose epic feeling the previous albums had. While loosing on this aspect, the band still managed to master brightly the opposites, flowing from heavy darkness to solemn mellow passages, in very gentle unnoticed nuances. Mikael Akerfeldt publicly stated almost going crazy as they had very few time to accomplish the album, due to the closure of their previous label, and mourns over it could be better.

The album is indeed generally more aggressive than the previous ones, but it shows also the quartet subtlety at its highest level. This is specially noticed on all the entirely intimate beauty of "A Fair Judgement", a complex suite of solemn piano, celestial vocal harmonies, mellow guitars with a bit of energy at times. It is the corollary of the band's sensibility and it does not have any growl. "Deliverance" is another highlight to their repertory; again the nuance created between the energetic heavy beginning and the captivating and peaceful follower passage reaches the boundaries of celestial. The track ends in a vibrating apotheosis mastered specially by Martin Lopez energetic drumming. In fact, his drumming shows a lot of progression and intelligently continues not entering the excesses of the genre. "Wreath", the opener, is the heaviest and can frighten as it flows sometimes in an almost doom-like hard-core pattern, in a current of dozens of inspired, complex and heavy guitar riffs. The far more conventional death metal of "Master's Apprentices" and the almost psychic madness of "By the Pain I See in Others" are other great movements, always with the traditional nuances from catchy heavy riffs/growls to the quiet solemn ethereal parts.

A step forward in the band's sound. The album is, again, full of memorable complex guitar riffs and energetic heavy parts which praises to heaven the most sullen ones, taking emotion almost to tears. Definitely not for all tastes, and requires lots of patience in order to understand it, but still a masterpiece in the genre. 4,5 stars.