A Rather Sketchy Top 50

[Big Hath]

second mention of Graceland on a top 50 list

[Elite]

It's great how you can rave about that Besnard Lakes album without giving us any clue as to what the music sounds like. I have no idea now whether I should check it out or not.

[Sketchy]

Ah, sorry about that. I got so caught up in liking it, I completely forgot really how to describe it. I think the best description of it is "hypnotic", and it rocks pretty nicely with some sweet mellotron and hammond occasionally. It's pretty proggy in that it has long build ups and is pretty much structural music rather than song-based or melody based.

Now for more update, including the album I am currently listening to.

27.   Astra – The Black Chord (2012)



Now this is one hell of a good record. I had got a copy of Astra’s debut, The Wierding, quite a while back, and I really enjoyed that record. It had these long passages of dreamy psychedelic jamming, and arrangements that made sections of the songs slide in and out of each other in a completely effortless sounding way, so naturally, when this album was announced, I had to pre-order it.

Naturally, I was excited to hear what this would be like, when it arrived, especially after hearing the song “Quake Meat” from it. I was not disappointed. This album is quite similar in style to the debut, but considerably more focussed, but loosing none of the experimental psychedelic feel of the earlier. The style is very much an amalgam of the old bands from the seventies in their prime, and the recording is deliberately produced to reflect that song-writing style.

I remember my stepfather commenting that he had been about to say “they don’t write them like this anymore” when I was listening to it once, before he then realised that this was something that had only come out the week before. I think there is always the danger when imitating an old style of sounding a little bit contrived, especially when there are so many available recordings already from that decade, but this album (for me, at least) avoids that, and sounds as inspired as all of the old ones.

26.   Steve Hackett – Out Of The Tunnel’s Mouth (2009)



In my first term at university, my stepfather insisted that I was to see a Steve Hackett gig, as it was only natural, as he had done the same at his first term over thirty years previously. It was a small place, although we got to go up in this balcony type place and have a decent view as my mother had her leg in a cast at the time and couldn’t stand for very long (she had broken her foot three miles into a marathon and continued running until the finish about a week before).

At that show, I got hold of this album (as that was the latest at the time), much of which was played at the gig. I really like the transitions between sections in the longer songs on this album, especially on The Sleepers and Emerald And Ash. The end section to the latter definitely displays the King Crimson influence in Steve Hackett’s music, and it’s incredible when that riff kicks in, especially with the stick backing.

There are some much softer moments on the album too, such as the short instrumental Ghost In The Glass, and moments like these act as a wonderful counterpoint to the heavier, more aggressive moments. What really makes the album so special for me, though, are the middle-eastern violin melodies on Last Train To Istanbul. That song is one of my favourite album closers, and I think it is just wonderful.

[ColdFireYYZ]

The Black Chord is excellent! It's not very original at all, but as you said, it's an inspired album that I love listening to. I liked The Weirding but I haven't listened to it since The Black Chord came out. I guess I should play it again soon to see how it compares.

[Sketchy]

Sorry I have been a little lax with updates of late, but here are some more albums. I have a strange feeling that these are somewhat popular on this forum, but I can't imagine why I have that feeling...

25.   Spock’s Beard – Snow (2002)



While this isn’t the album that made me take up bass (that would be V), I think this album deserves to be on this list as I consider it to be one of the most fantastically sophisticated entire compositions in my entire collection. The transitions, playing and general flow of this album are all completely stellar. Just in terms of how good it is, it probably deserves to be much higher on this list, but almost everything above it have some sort of connection that I feel with them, which is what keeps this album as low on the list as it is.

There are, in true beard fashion, some wonderful moments of vocal harmony, namely on The Devil’s Got My Throat and especially Long Time Suffering, which elevate this album to some pretty high places. It’s got some of my favourite Spock’s Beard choruses (and seeing as they write some of my favourite choruses overall, that’s quite something) and that bass sound is so damn good.

Naturally, as it’s a Spock’s Beard album, there are going to be epic reprises, and naturally, this album has some pretty damn good ones, as well as some lovely little moments which are easy to overlook, such as that small organ melody in Wind At My Back pt. I. I  love that little bit of organ. It’s really understated, but it’s really lovely, and the way the drums slowly evolve over the course of that song just make it something really special.

24.   Opeth – Blackwater Park (2000)



This is the first Opeth album I bought, and it took me something like two years to get into it. I remember listening to it a couple of times over those two years and thinking that it wasn’t exactly bad, it just wasn’t my thing, but I could see why one would like it (that “Devious movement in your eyes” and subsequent bits of Bleak are to die for). Then, one day, I listened to it again, and it clicked. It just clicked so hard that I went and got more Opeth (and also went and listened to my copy of Watershed too, which has that organ solo of greatness on Burden).

Yes, the growls probably what turned me off Opeth originally, but now, I think I like them. I think I like them, partly because they’re balanced with those lovely acoustic sections, and it just adds a wonderful bit of contrast. It’s also great fun trying to imitate them really badly. But yes, what I love about this album is how those brutal-as-balls riffs are perfectly balanced with those heavenly acoustic sections, and hell, those guitar wails are really wonderful and eerie too.

I think the reason I went back and checked this album out again was that I had gotten really into Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree, and I remembered I’d enjoyed seeing Opeth at Prog Nation. The moment I realised that was Steven Wilson on Bleak left me as a bouncing-up-and-down version of Milena’s avatar. It was great. That said, I was listening to this on the day of the funeral of my stepfather’s mother. The hearse turned up just as The Funeral Portrait kicked in. That was really creepy.

[Silver Tears]

Two good updates! 

[Lolzeez]

I love Blackwater Park but I kinda prefer Still Life.

[Sketchy]

Now, in this update will be two things many of you may not have heard of before, one of which is from the city I grew up in/around.

23.   Takako Nishizaki – CHEN/HE: Butterfly Lovers Concerto/ZHANG/ZHU: Parting of the Newly Wedded (1992)



It’s time for a little more classical music for you now. As I mentioned when talking about 40 Degrees North, I love the Butterfly Lovers Concerto. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Anyway, I eventually got round to buying a copy, after first hearing it being played by a student orchestra which contained a girl on violin who I was madly in love with at the time (it ended up going no-where). Anyway, the music was beautiful, and so I eventually got a copy of it.

The story behind the concerto is a very well known traditional tale in China. It’s set in ancient China, and it concerns a young woman who falls deeply in love with a young man (represented by the violin and cello respectively),  and dresses as a man in order to attend school with him. They become close friends, and eventually, she gets recalled home to be married to someone else. He goes to find out where she has gone, and finds out she’s really female (or it might be the other way round), at which point, when he finds she’s to be married to someone else, he dies (or something like that). She goes to his grave, at which point the earth opens up, and she leaps in, at which point, they become butterflies in order to be together.

Or at least it’s something like that. It’s a really beautiful and sad story, either way. I love the piece, and the fact that there are other Chinese pieces on this album just makes it even better. As I have previously mentioned, I just love Chinese melodies, they sound so evocative to me in a way that more westernised ones often don’t. Oh, and the violinist (Takako Nishizaki) who plays solo violin on this recording is not exactly terrible at what she does either.


22.   Khan – Space Shanty (1972)



…And now for some more music from my hometown. I love this album for its incredible flow. It also has some really groovy riffs, but the way sections slide in and out is something truly incredible, and I really love that bit in Stargazers where there’s a swing section in 7/4 and a really nice guitar lead over the top. That bit is just amazing.

There are lots of parts of this album which make it great, but for me, it is how consistent it is that makes it truly brilliant. The version I have heard (a rerelease) has a great bonus track called “Breaking The Chains”. There are some really bombastic moments, like the title track, but after that, Stranded shows that Khan were capable of some really pretty moments.

It seems a shame that the band broke up soon after recording this debut, as I think they had a hell of a lot of potential, but then again, asking a Canterbury band to stay together, let alone keep the same line-up for a long period of time, is not something which will usually produce results. I guess, in a way, that is what keeps the music fresh, unique and interesting.

[ColdFireYYZ]

Space Shanty has been on my Amazon wishlist for like 2 years. I really need to listen to it as I love Canterbury Scene bands like National Health, Caravan, Quiet Sun, etc.

[Elite]

Blackwater Park

[DebraKadabra]

Blackwater Park

FTFY

[Sketchy]

So yeah, here's the next update, the music contained within being a little more well known around these parts than the previous update.

21.    Anathema – Weather Systems (2012)



This album is one I enjoy greatly, and has a special little significance to me. I remember when I was doing the technical test which led to my eventual getting a job (to be fair, that test was in January, so it’s reasonable I should still remember it), but at the point on the final day where I managed to get a small thing working which allowed me to actually get two thirds of it done in that single day, the full band kicked in on Untouchable Pt. I. That, I have to say, is an amazing feeling, just to get something working and then this insanely fanfare-ish, triumphant music kicks in. It was so damn good.

The album itself is really nice too. There are some lovely soft moments, but also some really energetic bits that I also love. I love how electronic The Storm Before The Calm goes in the middle, and I love that Kch-Kch sound on the guitar in The Lightning Song. The whole album just feels so immense and it makes me really happy to hear it every time I put it on.

I have to admit, the instrumental capabilities of Anathema are deceptively high. That’s not to put them down, they are insanely amazing musicians, but their musicianship is so subtle that it’s easy to forget how capable they really are. It’s particularly highlighted in the drumming, where the drums seem straightforward, but there are so many little fills which are truly remarkable when you realise they are there.

20.   The Mahavishnu Orchestra – Birds Of Fire (1973)



Here is an album which has something which the absence from this list so far of this thing has surprised even myself. That’s not to say this thing has been totally absent, but it’s been less of a focus than I’d really expected, and less of a focus than it would have been, say, three years ago. What is that thing? Well, it’s shown on the Zappa, Rush and Hackett most prominently. It is: all out instrumental (particularly guitar) wizardry.

In the debut album, The Inner Mounting Flame, this is very much displayed, however, the reason this album makes it really high on this list and that that doesn’t come near this list is that here, it’s used in a fashion which always works. It’s just as good shredding from John McLaughlin, but in this album, it’s not shredding like a bastard over something which is really slow and melancholic, and really at odds with the solo, which if put on something like The Glass Prison would be one of the most amazing solos ever recorded. Anyone who’s heard that album will probably know the one I mean. It’s an epic solo, but in the wrong place.

This album, however, has no less manic playing, and if anything more manic playing, but it’s all right where the piece can support it, and so the calm parts of this album are incredibly beautiful while the less calm parts are utterly manic, and hell, I love it so damn much. If there’s a way to make me madly start air-instrumenting everything, it’s by putting this album on and turning the volume up. I think if I listened to it more often, I’d explode.

[?]

Weather Systems is very nice, although Anathema have at least 3 better albums IMO.

[Sketchy]

Today, two rather proggy albums which are pretty diametrically oposed in terms of style, both of which I love intensely, and both of which have some pretty epic playing on all instruments, and both of which have a second side which has at least a certain orchestral element in it.

19.   Dream Theater –Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence (2002)



And talking of The Glass Prison and other assorted shred-fests of ultimate glory, here’s Six Degrees. From this album onwards, everything on this list is pretty much listed under “this is too damn good to be real” in my book. I love how the first disc is quite experimental for Dream Theater standards, and has some pretty neat song structures. It has a huge range of music from the wonderful piano and strings in Blind Faith and lovely ballad that is Disappear to the abrasive Misunderstood and fast paced The Glass Prison. Oh, and The Great Debate is pretty damn awesome too.

Then we have the second disc. Oh man, I love this second disc. I’ve always liked long, classical-inspired things, and this is no exception. It also probably contains the finest moment in any Dream Theater record for me, and one that’s not far off my overall favourite musical moment. That is the guitar solo in Goodnight Kiss. There’s that wonderful bit where it goes from that lovely, soaring melody, and then the music changes, and it just takes on that lovely lazy feeling, which just elevates it further in a really effortless way.

But yes, this album is full of fine moments, and I absolutely adore it. I probably should blast it more often, but it’s a nice treat when I do go and listen to it. Hell, I enjoy it so much, it’s almost an event worth celebrating in itself.

18.   Camel – A Live Record (1978)



So, you want all of the jazzy, fusion rhythmic goodness of the Rain Dances album with a full version of The Snow Goose (orchestra and all), with a few other traditional Camel songs thrown in, all with an additional (and godly) organ solo on Migration? Well, A Live Record might be exactly what you’re looking for. It probably is my go-to Camel album as it has all the things I love from both of the earlier incarnations of Camel. If it had a complete recording of Nude, then I’d be sorted (I was so close to including that album on this list too, I adore it).

There are some really interesting little quirks, like a different arrangement of Never Let Go, with a cracking organ solo (although I prefer the original mellotron solo), and some really groovy rhythm section parts throughout the song. I’m not entirely sure the saxophone in the live rendition of Lunar Sea maybe works as well as the original Moonmadness recording, but it’s certainly interesting, and I really love the rendition here.

There’s a lot to recommend about this album, especially the passion with which the performances are executed. Camel is one of those often overlooked bands, but I think they were masters of the progressive rock genre, although maybe let down slightly by the vocals, they more than made up for it (in my opinion) with their instrumental capabilities and fluid songwriting.

[Elite]

I love that Kch-Kch sound on the guitar in The Lightning Song.

ME TOO!
Best moment on the album for some weird reason.

Weather Systems is good, though I prefer We're Here.... and SDOIT is good as well, though it's not nearly my favourite.
Haven't heard the other two.

[Sketchy]

The main thing to note about Mahavishnu stuff is it's batshit crazy, but I imagine it'd go down well in DT fandom.

[ColdFireYYZ]

Weather Systems is my favorite Anathema album and Birds of Fire is an excellent album as well.

SDOIT is my second favorite DT album (after Scenes). I love Camel but I haven't heard that live album. They're one of my favorite prog bands so I really should get it sooner rather than later.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Six Degrees is awesome. I haven't listened to Camel any, so I can't comment on that album.

[Lolzeez]

Awesome albums. All of them.

[Big Hath]

the mentions of both Weather Systems and Birds of Fire were the 2nd for each album in the top 50 threads

17th mention for 6DOIT, tying it with SFAM for 3rd overall in mentions

3rd Camel album to be listed

[Sketchy]

Here are another two quite different albums. One is jazzy and insane, the other atmospheric and hypnotic. One I first heard rather recently, the other of which is one of the first albums I ever owned. Both albums, however, I consider to be very special, at least for me, and which always make me happy to hear.

17.   Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here (1975)



I personally think this is a great album. It perfectly shows Pink Floyd’s atmospheric style, and also their experiments with whatever they had around in the studio at the time. This album runs from haunting soundscapes to some hard grooving (I love Shine On You Crazy Diamond pt VIII), and hell, that’s just in one single song, multiple times each (although, that song is half the album). I have long considered the slide guitar solo in the sixth part if that epic with the name so long I will put a placeholder instead of writing out the entire thing to be one of my favourite Gilmour moments ever, and I prefer it to a hell of a lot of his more famous solos. It’s just so fluid and soaring, and hell, when the synth comes in underneath, it just hits perfection.

After the beautiful saxophone on the first half of Shine On You Crazy Diamond comes the oppressive electronic sound of Welcome To The Machine. I love this song, and its highly synthetic texture makes it a really good contrast to the rest of the album. It’s the sort of music I would imagine playing in a church in a science fiction film. It has that air of oppressive grandeur which would really fit. The sound sample at the end is also a short but wonderful moment.

It’s easy to overlook Have A Cigar, it’s less distinctive than Welcome, it’s less epic than Shine and it isn’t as emotional or pretty as the title track, but I personally think it has a hell of a lot going for it. On any other album, I think it would be a really high point, but it’s just a shame that such a good song should be the one forgotten song in the album, although that is testament to how damn good everything else on the album is. Finally, we have the title track (because the second half of Shine comes back and I’ve already waxed lyrical about that. This song is really quite pretty, and is a nice little break on the album. It’s got lovely lyrics (and I’m sure as hell not usually a lyrical person), and by all means any other song of a similar vein would just have been swallowed up here, but it’s a really good song.

16.   Hiromi’s Sonicbloom – Time Control (2007)



This is one hell of a good album. It is to me one of the finest things I have heard in jazz or jazz fusion. Hiromi is a truly amazing keyboard player, and the weird sounds she makes on the synthesizers do slightly remind me of Jordan Rudess’s Rhythm Of Time album, which I really love too.

Aside from the instrumental craziness inherent in her music, there are also some of the most wonderfully beautiful piano parts I have heard in a long time. Hiromi Uehara is a truly versatile writer and musician, and judging by some of the music on this album, probably has a sense of humour about her music too.

I’m not really quite sure what to say about this album. It is an album which has some really quite infectious rhythms, and some really nice chords used (they are really nice), and all round versatility of musicianship. It’s really quite upbeat, and it never fails to make me smile.

[?]

Wish You Were Here It's my second favorite Floyd album, Animals is #1.

[ColdFireYYZ]

Great update! 
Time Control is the only Hiromi album that I have, but I absolutely love it. And WYWH is, of course, a masterpiece.

[Sketchy]

Glad you guys be liking it.

[DebraKadabra]

Wish You Were Here It's my second favorite Floyd album, Animals is #1.

Yep yep.

[Sketchy]

Ok, some modern prog for you now. There's not really much I can say about these albums which isn't in their individual reviews, however, both are quite different to the albums released by their respective artists prior to these albums.

15.   Opeth – Heritage (2011)



I’m listening to this album as I type this up. In true Opeth style, it’s winding as hell, and completely unpredictable, which of course, I absolutely love. It seems to me fitting that for a band known for sudden jazzy progressive rock and folk sections in the middle of brutal death metal that they should do a really jazzy prog album after a long string of brutal ones (an entire career in fact). While some have seen this as a bit of an insult to their fanbase, I don’t. After all, if you were getting what you expected, then it wouldn’t be Opeth.

I have to admit, I was thinking yesterday about the lyrical style on this album (we’d been talking about typical metal lyrics at work), and I realised actually quite how sophisticated they can be at times. The words used are very abstract and figurative throughout, and I think the album benefits greatly that due to the non-use of growls, it’s not as easy to mishear what is being sung. I think at this point in my list, something either has to be really stellar and everything else good for an album to be this high, or art, music and words (for the non-instrumentals) must all be consistently high, if not stellar, and I think this is an album where that is definitely true. I love Opeth cover art in general, and yes, the music on this album is intriguing, mysterious and fluid, and the words are just glorious.

There is so much to love about this album, and so much I do love about it. I remember hearing it for the first time and just being so excited about it throughout the whole thing, including putting it on the 5.1 and just sitting down to listen.  It’s wonderfully energetic, but also has some wonderful moments of atmospheric wonder, which are like lying on the lawn and looking at the centre of the galaxy. I would miss this album if I couldn’t listen to it any more.

14.   Steven Wilson – Grace For Drowning (2011)



I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a huge Wilson fan. I got my copy of this album signed when it came out (and I was so happy). It’s a huge departure from a lot of his (then) recent work, as it’s a lot more brooding and meditative than the more driving work he was doing with Porcupine Tree. The focus is heavily on the layers of dark and ethereal atmospheres, with some amazing musicianship thrown in to add structure.

For me, the album hits an absolute peak of saturation with Raider II. I know that’s a weird way of putting it, but that’s where it feels the whole reason for the album just gets so concentrated that the tension is amazing. There are times when I get to that part of the album and it does feel like the air is about to shatter into a multitude of glittering shards.

Actually, that’d be pretty amazing if that did happen, but it really does feel like that to me. It just builds through the course of the album until that point. If anything, Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye is intended to stop people keeling over dead when they then put on something considerably less Steven Wilson.

[?]

Heritage is a surprising top 15 pick (and so is GFD, due to both being relatively new), but I'm among those who enjoy the record. Grace for Drowning is my least favorite SW solo album, but it has its moments.

[Sketchy]

I'm listening to Heritage at the moment, I must admit.

[ColdFireYYZ]

Heritage is amazing. Maybe not top 15 material for me, but it's my second favorite Opeth album.

GFD is currently my second favorite SW-related (including PT, Blackfield, etc) album. I love just about everything on it and it's pretty close to being a masterpiece IMO.

[Sketchy]

Yet again we have two pretty different albums. One is really rather mellow and accoustic, the other very grand and powerful. One is very much vocal in nature and the other is mostly instrumental. One is in English, yet still mostly incomprehensible to pretty much anyone who hears it, and the other is in mandarin, and looking at the translations of the lyrics, still pretty incomprehensible. I love both a lot.

13.   Cold Fairyland – Seeds On The Ground (2007)



This album is a really lovely one, with Chinese influenced progressive rock and folk throughout. The Cold Fairyland frontwoman, Lin Di, (and main writer) plays a truly lovely instrument called the “pipa”. It has a really earthen quality to its sound which gives this album quite an exotic feel in comparison to the rest on this list. I love the feel of Chinese melodies, so naturally there would be some Chinese music somewhere in the top twenty.

This album is mostly instrumental (I love instrumentals) and rhythmically very intriguing. Mixed metres and odd groupings of beats are thrown around throughout the album in a truly effortless way, and to be quite honest, it doesn’t even click as being an odd rhythm most of the time, as the melodies just fold themselves around the rhythms. For the western world, 11/8 is considered a very “far-out” and technically difficult thing to play, but in the east, these sorts of rhythms are commonplace, and really not that terrifying at all.

The pipa is not the only instrument in the sound of this band which will maybe strike you as unusual for a band which largely falls under progressive rock (although it is progressive rock, so I guess it’s a bit of a moot point). There is also a cellist. The story behind how they got a cellist is one which amuses me, so I may as well tell it. Back in the early days of the band, it was just a guitar/bass/drums/Keys-vocals-pipa lineup, and the girlfriend of the drummer used to have to sit outside during rehearsals (band members allowed only). The band had the chance to tour to another part of China, but there was only the tansport for band members, so they allowed the drummer’s girlfriend to join the band in order for her to come along (she’s a cellist in the Shanghai opera), and it worked, so she stayed. To be fair, the cello does add such a lovely smoothness to the sound, so I personally consider it a damn good decision.

12.   Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (1974)



My stepfather often comments that this is good Saturday afternoon music in the autumn. I think I can see exactly what he means by that. If it starts getting dark and rainy at about six or seven, after some lovely, long summer days, that point when the light dies down is really depressing on a Saturday. It just feels like the entire day has just gone, and chances are, it was raining, so you were inside all that time too. The concept behind this album is notoriously hard to fathom, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was dreamed up one November. I hate November.

Anyway, this album is not a happy one, but it’s really bloody good. It’s not a surprise that it was not well received, just as much as it’s not a surprise it’s now regarded as one of the best (if not the best) work that Genesis ever produced. It feels very coherent in how it slides from one thing to another, and the musicianship is also brilliant. It’s a very engaging listen, and if you do listen to it on a Saturday afternoon in November, chances are the more depressive passages of the album will kick in just when the afternoon fades.

Sometimes it seems a shame that Peter Gabriel left after this album, but some how, I don’t think so. It is very unlikely that they could have done anything to top this musically afterwards, it’s just one of those things, so I guess something would have had to change afterwards anyway. Besides, it gives the album a sort of mystique in a way, and even with out that, it’s far from a grand parade of lifeless music.

[DebraKadabra]

The Lamb!

[Big Hath]

only the second time Lamb has been mentioned in a top 50 list

[DebraKadabra]

 

[Sketchy]

Yet again, there is a huge difference in the two albums presented here. One is really very mellow and the other really is not. One is an album I like to play late at night before I go to bed, and the other often gets played in my mother's car, windows down, while she's racing down the country lanes. The albums are separated by nearly fifty years in release date, and both are, to my mind, pretty innovative. One brought unusual meters to jazz, and the other is... Well, it is what it is. Wierd, heavy and really fun, with a whole blast of atmospherics to boot.

11.   The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Out (1959)



As you can probably tell by now, I like things which are rhythmically quite unusual, and also I am a bit of a jazz-fiend at times, so naturally, this has to go here. It amuses me that Take Five was originally intended just to be a thing to showcase a drum solo, but then ended up being an unintended hit. I think that pretty much sums up the entire album. It is composed entirely of jazz musicians experimenting with something that hadn’t really been experimented with much in jazz before that time, namely, unusual rhythms, and the experiment worked.

This album is a really rather mellow one for the most part, or at least it seems that way to me, but it contains some really interesting ideas hidden within the music, especially that bit in Blue Rondo A La Turk which switches between 9/8 and 4/4. That bit is absolute genius.

I don’t really have much more to say about this album. It’s not one which I feel is greater than it is given credit for. It’s a really well known album, and quite deservedly so, I just really like it.

10.   Opeth – Ghost Reveries (2005)



Five or six years ago, I would have hated this album. Why? First: it is metal. I really did not get into metal until I started mellowing and bought a Dream Theater album. Second: it is growly metal. Growly sounds were pretty much one of the main things I hated about metal. To be fair, I still don’t like growls for the most part, and I have somewhat drifted back away from metal, except for some of the odder metal, and that is what this is.

So, given that, what the hell do I like about it? First: the growls are interspersed with clean singing, giving a lovely contrast in the appropriate sections. Second: Opeth’s music is unpredictable as hell. I love that, as on first listen I never have any idea of where it is going, and with very few exceptions it ends up somewhere massively different from where it started. Third: I guess, as a result of experimentation with keyboards, the album is really quite atmospheric. It is a very heavy album, but the keyboards give it this denseness I like. The album feels so thick that sometimes it’s almost as if I could reach out and run my hand through it. It’s like sonic treacle.

Not just that, but Mikael Akerfeldt can really riff. His riffs are not generic or background, and when one is starting to run to the end of its useful duration, it gets swapped out for something new, making it always seem fresh. I guess that’s back to the unpredictability element that I love about it. I remember at the PN09 show I was at, which was the first time I’d heard Opeth, I was massively impressed by them, and naturally bought BWP at the show, but there was this song with a rhythm I could not get my head around, and to this day still have not got it right, but it fascinates me. Yes, that song is Harlequin Forest.

[?]

Ghost Reveries