Ghost Reveries

Product Information

Smith, Rod (September 2005). "Opeth Ghost Reveries – Wargasm of the Worlds". Decibel magazine. Archived from the original on 18 January 2008 . Retrieved 13 January 2008. Ghost Reveries is the eighth studio album by Swedish progressive metal band Opeth. It was released on 29 August 2005. It was their first album after signing with Roadrunner Records, and first album since Still Life (1999) to not be produced by Steven Wilson. [3]

Those two songs also feature some of the best Mikael's vocal performances ever. He has improved a lot, from the almost monotonous (but still beautiful) performance on Morningrise to the terrific (in a good way, obviously) one on Damnation. On Ghost Reveries he reaches his peak, clean voice-wise. His growls sound a bit more forced here than on, say, My Arms, Your Hearse (after all he is older now) but this album is, vocally, EXCELLENT, in every sense of the word. However, the once poetic, often-harmonizing duel guitars are nowhere found in Ghost Reveries. Even so, the electric guitar riffs are not very powerful, the acoustic/clean guitar passages really are not hypnotic as on albums past, the solos, although good, are nowhere near as epic as they once were, and the overall musical structure led by the guitars is not very coherent. Mikael. "Opeth Chapter 8". Opeth.com. Archived from the original on 5 February 2008 . Retrieved 12 January 2008. There are surely few bands that can rival Opeth, in terms of dissent amongst fans. Heritage is something of a battle line, over which self-appointed ‘true fans’ lob ire at their favorite band’s softer, ‘sell-out’ phase, while some (myself included) are fond of just about everything the band made after Steven Wilson got involved. There are, however, a few seemingly universal points of agreement. Ghost Reveries is just such a point, a near-universally (and rightly) lauded work that is, in my mind, the quintessential Opeth album.Considering the current musical course of the band, I have strong doubts we’ll ever get anything near this or Watershed ever again. An unfortunate fact (in my opinion), which definitely raises the value of these records – maybe even more so for Ghost Reveries than Watershed. Ghost Reveries is a special landmark which I recommend to any and all music lovers. Overall, this album has a load of awesome sections, a couple great sections, and a very few only mediocre sections. Mostly the problems are stretching songs out too much and clean vocals where deathy ones woulda worked better. Swedish progressive death metal behemoth Opeth have a rich and varied history behind them at this point – many of their records could rightfully be considered their crowning acvhievement, for reasons unique to every album and to every listener that engages with the band’s music. And yet, finding one out of their twelve full-lengths we all agree upon for inclusion in the A Scene In Retrospect feature proved to be surprisingly easy a task. Apparently, their eighth album Ghost Reveries holds a special place in the hearts of our team and the Opeth fanbase alike; you can find what our Editor-in-Chief Landon and staff writers Jud, John, and Robert have to say about it. Enjoy!

Katatonia had done a record with him,” Mikael explains. “Jonas [Renkse, Katatonia frontman] said that Jens was a good guy to record with and very into the details, which felt perfect for me. We needed someone like that because of the state of the band.” The best concept to define Opeth, at least up until the release of Ghost Reveries (or even Watershed, though that could be stretching a bit), is bipolar music. There's no difficulty in seeing why. Anything that contains death metal will, of course, be brutal, but Opeth goes beyond this and gives beauty to their songs. Aggression and beauty here walk in parallel ways, occasionally crossing paths, joining their apparent contradictory faces in a new one. Silly listener, because right from that, Opeth went all in with growls, double bass, and heavy guitar chugging! I knew that this drive through Florida was going to be one to remember about a minute in. From there came “The Baying of the Hounds” and “Beneath the Mire” which are both absolute perfection. A flawless blend of savagery and beauty that we have come to expect from Opeth. Newcomer Wiberg shines with many organs and mellotrons, adding a whole new layer over the guitars and rhythm section. Still, some songs don’t even get anywhere. “Reverie/Harlequin Forest” begins with a haunting, atmospheric siege of Opeth originality. However, almost in the blink of an eye, the song changes to a monotonous, palm-muted, pseudo technical riff near the end and fades out that way. “The Grand Conjuration”, proclaimed by many to be their biggest hit off the album, is a complete waste of genius. Jurek, Thom (2005). "Ghost Reveries – Opeth". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 20 October 2017 . Retrieved 15 November 2017.a b Åkerfeldt, Mikael. "Opeth Chapter 10". Opeth.com. Archived from the original on 20 January 2008 . Retrieved 12 January 2008. Opeth – Ghost Reveries". Billboard. Vol.117, no.34. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 20 August 2005. p.51.

The rhythm section, led by Martin Lopez on drums and Martin Mendez on bass, isn’t very exciting either. It seems that Lopez has become substantially more robotic in his drumming techniques, and the bass is often not clearly audible. Blabbermouth.Net". Roadrunnerrecords.com. Archived from the original on 3 December 2005 . Retrieved 14 January 2012. Drowned In Sound's Top 46 Albums of 2005". Archived from the original on 16 June 2021 . Retrieved 1 March 2021. I had intended to do a occult concept piece lyrically and got off to a great start with some downright evil lyrics like "The Baying of the Hounds" and "Ghost of Perdition", then I did "Isolation Years" which had nothing to do with the intended concept but I liked it so much I decided to ease up on the concept idea in favour of this one lyric. Why I decided on a occult theme? Well, I've always been intrigued by it, especially Satanism and stuff like that. I studied some books that oddly enough my wife had in her collection like "Servants of Satan" as well as "Witchcraft and Sorcery" + some more. I figured it'd be interesting to see what a mature 31 year old mind would make of this subject as opposed to the 16 year old kid who used to pose in front of his Bathory poster. I'm quite happy with them to be honest, and they're... evil!" [9]Ghost Reveries is the first album by Opeth to include keyboardist Per Wiberg as a "permanent" member (although Wiberg contributed keyboard work to Opeth's live performances starting around the time of Lamentations), and it is the last Opeth album to include drummer Martin Lopez and long-time guitarist Peter Lindgren. [4] This is, as I've already said, the first calm song of the record. The other ones are the excellent Hours of Wealth and the closer Isolation Years, the latter being the only tune that doesn't speak about the concept of the album (which consists of a strange occult-themed story, that talks about a guy that is possessed by a malefic entity, if I'm not wrong). Mikael:“ Atonement has become a great live song over the years. We like to jam that one out, and it gives us a lot of freedom. The Grand Conjuration is one of my favourite Opeth songs to play. It’s so heavy and straightforward, and we don’t have many songs like that… and it’s really not a nu metal song, I promise you.” First of all, Opeth isn't a commercial band. I feel like my stomach is burning when someone says that. The music Opeth produces is unique. It can be pretty aggressive, very mellow or a mix of both. After all, all this mix of styles is a true trademark of progressive music.. why people call the band sell-outs when they compose gorgeous breakdowns inside the songs is beyond me. Musically, “Ghost of Perdition” and “Isolation Years” are the keepers here, creating a sense of awe that bring to Opeth the respect they deserve.