DAMNATION

This is Opeth seventh album and was released in 2003. In the making of this album, Steve Wilson from Porcupine Tree, was involved, since Blackwater Park. The major thing about this album is the vocal style from Mikael Akerfeldt, which is totally different with other Opeth's albums. No growling.

For those of you who are new to Opeth, here is litte information. Opeth is a band which has a unique musical style, to combine a death metal with softer progressive rock, most of the time, these elements fused in a song. So basically, sometimes a song can have a death metal style with growling vocal, while at the same time, the style changes to softer. I believe this is the main character of Opeth, which is Akerfeldt's vocal style. His vocal sound, undoubtedly, is one of the best in progressive metal music. His growling vocal is just great, jaw-dropping growl, while his clean vocal is just amazing, deep and just fit the songs perfectly.

Actually this is my fifth Opeth's album, after Ghost Reveries, My Arms Your Hearse, Still Life and Blackwater Park. Honestly I prefer their other albums with a mix of death metal and softer rock. Nevertheless, this is an amazing album, has a very deep emotion and great song compositions.

The great thing about this album is, although they offered a much softer album, the songs are not that poppish and simple. They still added some progressive elements and beautiful solos to complement the songs. Also, though the songs are mellow, Opeth still brought a dark and mysterious concept; mostly about desperation and death (the CD cover is somewhat scary). But yeah, the best thing is the emotion and feeling on each song, through the great songwriting and Akerfeldt's great vocal.

For the individual songs, my favorite track is In My Time Of Need, because the feeling of the song is just overwhelming. Moreover, the chorus, "And I should contemplate this change, to ease the pain." After that the song's feeling changes at the bridge part, becoming darker with a simple but nice guitar solo. Too bad that Opeth didn't offer a hard rock song; I mean, the songs in this album are great, not that death metal, not that mellow. However I expect something heavier than this, more distorted guitar and dynamic drum riffs. It is possibly because I bought other Opeth's album first, then this album. So probably I already like Opeth's growling death metal style as it is. The other thing about individual song is the second last song, Ending Credits, which is an instrumental song (its not so Opeth typical). The song is very nice, calming and very cool. The background of the song is an acoustic guitar sound with a softer rock drum style. This instrumental song has the "verse chorus verse chorus bridge" structure, not really showcases Peter Lindgren's skills, as its just an "ending credits".

So in the end, I would probably give four stars, because I am actually comparing this album to other Opeth's albums. What this album need is just a slight increase in the musical style, need heavier rock, and although I know this album was intended to have a softer style than the usual Opeth. Oh, about you, the potential listeners, I don't think this is a really good album to start with Opeth, as this album is not the 100% Opeth. If you want to like a band, or just listen to a band, I reckon its better to listen to the real style first, and then go to the second style of the band, just like Damnation by Opeth.

Listen To Music, Not War!!!

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