The Albums That Made Me

Opeth - Blackwater Park

This album was my introduction to Opeth. I was home on leave after basic training for the Army. My friend and I went to see a Metallica tribute band (Battery, who was awesome by the way) at a local venue. While standing around waiting for the show to start, one of the songs from this album started playing over the sound system and it stopped me in my tracks. I think it was Bleak, because I distinctly remember the jarring transition from the guttural vocals into the beautiful melodic section. I NEEDED to know who it was, so I went up to the sound guy and asked. I purchased Blackwater Park as soon as possible.

Things get a little blurry with this one, only because I’ve listened to it so regularly over the years, but it still brings me back to my time in the military. Specifically, I was listening to it a lot while we were on a training deployment to “The US Army’s premier desert training facility” at Fort Irwin, California. It was a long bus ride from Colorado, and there was always a lot of down time, so I spent a lot of time sitting around with my headphones on, daydreaming about coming back home.

For the uninitiated, Opeth songs are generally looooong. The majority of the tracks on this album range between 6 and 10 minutes, giving the band ample time to roam between technical death metal sections and beautiful acoustic passages. There’s a lot of riff repetition in the songs, which if they wrote shitty riffs would be a problem for me, but that’s not the case. In my eyes, it gives you a chance to soak it in and get lost in the music.

I’m not going to gush too much about the production and musicianship, but there’s a lot to appreciate here. Steven Wilson did a fantastic job with the production of the album, and this was a big step up for them as far as the clarity of the recordings, even with copious amounts of reverb present on here (just listen to that snare drum!). I didn’t get Morningrise until after this one, but the recordings are like night and day. Morningrise is drowning in reverb and just doesn't have the same kind of punch to me. While I appreciate it as a snapshot in time for the evolution of the band, it just doesn’t hold a candle to Blackwater Park.

Mikael Åkerfeldt is one of my favorite vocalists in heavy music. It’s unusual to be able to go between such a low, but articulate growl and clean, emotive vocals. The guitars are great, but I love the drums. Martin Lopez very quickly rose high on my list of favorite drummers after hearing this. His double bass chops are first rate and I just love the way he writes drum parts. He's precise without being sterile.

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