Opeth

It’s been almost 5 months since I became a die hard fan of Opeth and I still can’t get over them, each of their songs is like a masterpiece of creation.
Opeth is a extreme progressive metal band from Sweden that draws its influence from jazz,1970s progressive rock, blues and folk.
Their exact style of music is debated,it seems to be a mixture of melodic death and prog. rock with a larger contribution from the latter.
Many elements of prog rock can be seen in their style of music,their songs are uniquely crafted with variant verses, changing time signatures and other elements unique to progressive metal, like other progressive metal acts (Dream Theater, etc.) their songs seem to be built centrally around the guitar lead and the vocals “gently” mould into it, another element of progressive metal that can be seen in their music is the length of their tracks they vary from as small as 2 min to tracks of the order of 15 min. or more.

Many of their tracks titles as well as lyrics have some or the other reference to the moon.
Their name 'Opeth' has been taken from the book 'Sunbird' by Wilbur Smith,the creator of the famous characters such as Taita,Lostris,etc. from the cult book 'River God'.
Trivia time-
"Opeth' was originally 'Opet' in the book,guess what it means?

One thing that sets this band apart is their vocalist. Mikael Akerfeldt does both clean as well as growling vocals and varies it with extreme ease in their music. Check out his vocals on tracks such as Bleak, Black rose immortal, The Leper affinity,Beneath the mire etc.
They do both soft as well as heavy stuff equal brilliance, the songs such as- To bid you farewell,Atonement etc. have a phsychedelic touch it (Listen to it when you are high,it'll sound even better that Floyd) .
And the tracks Black rose immortal, The leper affinity etc. will surely make you head bang till you crack your neck.

The album ‘Damnation’ is an extreme variation from any of their previous stuff, the complete album has only clean vocals and is devoid of any element of heavy music, the only thing that is still opethian is the lyrics which still talks about relationships, depression, nature, death,etc.,the brilliant guitarist Martin,drums by ‘Axe’ and of course the bassist Lopez.
But the change doesn’t seem to affect the quality of music set by their previous albums, according to me it could be one of their best albums till date.

All their stuff is absolutely brilliant, but for people who want to a taste of opethian music listen to-
- Beyond good and evil(The cult cover)
-The Leper affinity(Blackwater park)
-Blackwater park(Blackwater Park)
-Death whispered a lullaby(Damnation)
-Windowpane(Damnation)
-In my time of need(Damnation)
-Black rose immortal(Morningrise)
-To bid you farewell(Morningrise)
-Serenity painted death(Still Life)
-Face of Melinda(Still Life)
-Deliverance(Deliverance)
-Atonement(Ghost Reveries)
-Baying of the hounds(Ghost Reveries)
-Ghost of perdition(Ghost Reveries)
They’ll give you the best of both worlds of soft and heavy opeth, and as for all you metal heads out there who want to listen to some good kick ass music,buy all their albums.