ORCHID

This album, honestly, is quite impressive for a first record. I found it to be somewhat repetitive however. For example, I go for long bike rides to clear my mind, I put Orchid on. I thought I was listening to one song. The drumming is basically garbage, with some incredibly random fills. The singing and growling however, sounds very good. The best i've heard it.

In The Mist She Was Standing, basiclaly just sounds like Melodic Death Metal, nothing more. Althought some of the parts were pretty good, like the part with the nice bass line, the song overall conufses me with random drumming and no structure. (6/10)

Under The Weeping Moon, is a great deal better than what preceded it. The drumming is way better and the song isn't pointlessly long. The break in the middle leads into these weird guitar sounds, which I liked a lot. Then into a bass and drums combo, then back into the regular death metal twin guitars format. Overall good song, just not special. (8/10)

I liked Silhouette a lot, It had some nice piano arrangements, but in the end it's just a segue. (8.5/10)

Frost Of October, sounds WAY better than anything. At least in the beginning. It sounds like somethign from Still Life. It really does remind me of Moonlapse Vertigo in some ways. But, it sounds like every other song on this album which sort of frustrates me. (8/10)

What I did with each song on this album is skipped one minute with my media player to see if the formula is still there. METAL 1:00-5:00 ACOUSTIC 5:00-7:30 METAL 7:30-11:00. Basically The Twillight Is My Robe is the same as every song on this album. (5/10)

Requiem, was pretty much random. I didn't find it too tasteful, just another wannabe classical piece written by some head smashing metalheads. (6/10)

The Apostle In Triumph starts off really nice, only to find out, in some error in the mastering sessions, the ending of Reqiuem got smashed into this song. Meh, no wonder. But then, in some twist, the actual song sounds promising, with some decent drumming and nice guitars. Then oh no, more melodic death metal. Wait a minute, this sounds different. This song is actually a little of what future Opeth sounds like. It morphs back into crap metal though, but th acoustic break in this song sounds very interesting. Using the volume pedal to create some nice effects. The end of the album, you actually hear Mikael's voice! No growls! (8.5/10)

Overall, I can safely say this album is sub par to what Opeth is doing now. The drummer is horrid in this album, but basically Mikael just got a bunch of studio musicians to do his stuff. He just didn't get good ones.

3 stars.