MORNINGRISE

A few months after "Orchid", Opeth's second album, "Morningrise", sees the light (or darkness...). Keeping that combination of the most inhospitable metal tonalities constantly contrasted and complemented with acoustic oases (or lakes...), the Swedes led by Mikael Akerfeldt deploy their instrumental arsenal over a thematic base that runs through mossy and gloomy landscapes of nature and mortality in extensive pieces with no respite in between. Each song is carefully thought out, and despite their lengthy running times, the band manages to keep them gripping and intriguing throughout.

From the opening "Advent" and its light jazzy touches when the decibels drop in intensity, the confessional melancholy of the black-metal "The Night and the Silent Water", the overflowing and demonic "Nectar", and the versatility of the huge "Black Rose Immortal" that runs through all the metal and folk nuances of epic tinges, the band builds an impassable, hostile instrumental wall that suddenly dissolves to give way to gentle, arpeggiated touches of sanity, and rebuilds again with the same virulence in a cycle that repeats itself over and over again. Akerfeldt again shades his guttural vocals with more passages of clean vocal development, accompanied by Peter Lindgren with whom he shares saturated and bent guitars, Johan De Farfalla's well-assembled bass and Anders Nordin's, at times, less corrosive percussion than on "Orchid".

The album's closing track is reserved for "To Bid You Farewell", an aching ballad unplugged and given over to a sober rhythmic development that towards its last stretch features a dramatic dose of guitars to give it an even greater emotional charge, something that will be repeated in the band's later works.

With the participation of the influential and prolific Dan Swano, responsible for the bipolar and very successful production of the album, "Morningrise" represents another step forward in Opeth's career.

3.5 stars