PALE COMMUNION

i was so looking forward to this album. In theory it should be pure heaven for me: the great growling beast that was Opeth with a new, proggier attitude. Up until Heritage Opeth could do no wrong in my eyes. Not sure what happened there, but I was hoping that Heritage was just a bit of a blip. But no.

If Mikael Akerfeldt really wanted to introduce a proggy element why on earth did he not be truly progressive and make something a bit different (than all the other prog bands)? This is just sub- Steven Wilson music, and they're capable of so much better than that. In the recent collaborations between Steven Wilson and Mikael I'd say that SW definitely got the better end of the deal.

I was hovering between 2 and 3 stars as I never thought I'd be marking Opeth too low, but I'm afraid I'm going with 2 stars. I'm just hoping that the next one will be a return to form.