WATERSHED

Outside the rain hits the glass with a dry sound, depending on the speed of my fingers on the keyboard, writing slowly at first then faster. I looked at the object I need to review, the 2008 Opeth record. I thought, another book to the twilight atmosphere. I shivered contemplating photos on the front and back cover. I felt something cold, incomprehensible. The sensation of touching a dead tree. I write as the good old days of first spectral Black Sabbath. An avalanche of blinding lack of pictures then make me waver. A moment of 1980 when I listened for the first time this old thing. I pause, look back at all that has been written on Watershed, rubbing my temples. Oboe and medieval death metal? Headache overtakes me. The overwhelming rhythmic heaviness does not help. From the beginning, the work of Opeth seems certify room presence, effective, an army of shadows moving. All his ghostly iconography, carrying a very nineteenth century Gothic despair. Watershed does not alter the case. Ideal for dark days, it contains some of their essence. The apparent clarity of "Coil" which opens the album with hot and sweet voice of Nathalie Lorichs (Remember Julianne Regan of All About Eve) is not sufficient to relieve a general feeling oppressive. But I see nothing serene or bucolic there. Watershed tends to the gods his heart like poison coated dishes we pass in a divine meal.

After "Coil" Watershed continues with "Heir Apparent," a continuation of Ghost Reveries, this very personal vision has Mikael Åkerfeldt of death metal. "Burden" is more surprising with its unbridled solo Hammond organ and a final daring flamenco and detuned guitars. As usual, Mikael is ubiquitous: only "Porcelain Heart" is co-written with guitarist Fredrik Åkesson faithful. As a bonus to the special edition, the heroic "Derelicts Hands" (6:28). And three times, including the rampant Blues, "Brigde of Sighs" (6:55). The storm that moved away, rumbling east (the voice of giants?). I put in the drive and Watershed plunges me into reading an old Bram Stoker demonstrating that nothing is shorter than our life and death is only silence. Voice and music of giants!