Legacy Review: Opeth - Ghost Reveries

L-R: Martin Mendez(bass), Martin Lopez(drums), Peter Lindgren(guitar), Mikael Akerfeldt(vocals, guitar)

Release Date: August 29th, 2005

Label: Roadrunner Records

Album Playlist:

     For the first post of October, I wanted to kick it off with a new kind of review that will pop up every now and then on the blog. A legacy review is for, well, an older album which I hold very dear. There are many, and I would love writing about why specific albums are important to me and the genre in which they're found.

     Naturally, I'm starting legacy reviews with my favourite album ever... Starting high, I know. Either way, I thought it would be fitting for this month in particular. I am aiming to make the blog posts this month more frequent and more topical, and believe me when I say this album IS an October album. Autumn is a season where I get sentimental and nostalgic for many things, I can't explain it but there are always bands and types of music I find myself listening to more in the Autumn months. Not to mention movies I watch in the month of October, but more on that in a future post. For example, I find myself listening to a lot of Metal with a more somber than usual mood and Folk music, and Progressive Rock.

     It just so happens that there is one band who fits every one of those above-mentioned niches. Opeth are, and I believe always will be my favourite band and I spoken on that multiple times on the blog already. So without further ado, Ghost Reveries.

     Ghost Reveries is Opeth's eighth studio album, and it is their best in my opinion. It is actually difficult to put into an organized ranking of all of their albums for me, all of their albums are a perfect 10 in my mind. There are some which I like less, particularly the earliest three but they are still utterly perfect and unique. Ghost Reveries came as a turning point for the band. It is their last album with founding guitarist Peter Lindgren, and drummer Martin Lopez, and their first album with dedicated keyboards, provided by Per Wiberg. Until 2005, Lindgren and Lopez had been a staple in developing Opeth's sound and unmatched uniqueness. It is the most different album of Opeth's Metal years and deserves all of the acclaim it received and still receives today within the Metal community.

     I almost don't know how to start talking about the album itself, so I'll just start from the first track. "Ghost of Perdition" sets the stage for the darkest of Opeth's albums. Four ominous chords drenched in delay pedal ring out, and then Mikael Akerfeldt and co. burst into life. For those familiar with Opeth's previous works, it was easy to hear how different this sounded. Per Wiberg's Hammond Organ is not something one might expect to hear in a Metal song but there it was, supporting distorted guitars, double kick drums, and Akerfeldt's venomous growls. Immediately after this initial explosion, Opeth switches into their second more graceful form, Mikael Akerfeldt's layered harmonies flow over a beautiful acoustic accompaniment and this finds the song switching back and forth between these two contrasting moods effortlessly. Capping the song off is one of my favourite moments on the album, where the more aggressive side of Opeth comes through seamlessly after this peaceful acoustic interlude, of course padded with an incredible guitar solo.

     I've already mentioned "The Baying of the Hounds" in my Favourites Songs list, but it's worth mentioning again to outline the album's story. Though I am very heavily summarizing, Ghost Reveries is a gothic ghost story: a man becomes the target of evil forces through the act of killing his own mother, this is the subject of "Ghost of Perdition" and the story unravels further from there.

      "Beneath the Mire" is definitely the most Progressive Rock oriented song on the album, with very stop/start tempo and the most prominent keyboards heard yet. Just a great song. One thing to mention, the guitar solos found all over this album are seriously crazy, I know Mikael Akerfeldt and Peter Lindgren both tried to branch out of their normal playing style for the album and it really shows, and shines. The solo here is simply gorgeous and bizarre all at the same time.

     I need to find a way to shorten this review just a bit, so I'll mention the three acoustic/not-metal songs here, they all are more disconnected from the "plot" of the album so it makes sense to do it here. Needless to say, they are all beautiful and haunting particularly "Isolation Years" which is probably the saddest song I've ever heard. "Hours of Wealth" is great as well, and "Atonement" ends up as the weirdest song on the album. It's a very 70's psychedelic trip through a lot of unexpected sounds, hand drums and certain guitar scales used give it a distinctly Eastern flavour which really complements the song.

     "The Grand Conjuration" is one of the reasons this is an October album for me. The darkest song on the album by a mile, it is the point in the story where the "protagonist" has fallen into the grip of evil, and it is a very unsettling listen at times. Mikael Akerfeldt's breathy, almost whispered tenor is a spine-tingling contrast to the madness induced growling found elsewhere on the song. The guitar riffs all over this song are so weird and unique, this song used to be my least favourite on the album but it has grown on me over the years. Oh yeah, and again the guitar solo is a ripper.

     I know the highlight for many fans is the album's longest track and its centerpiece "Harlequin Forest", I wouldn't call it my favourite song on the album but it is truly deserving of the focus it gets on the album. This song has some of Mikael Akerfeldt's best vocals and most memorable riffs, the band sounds very focused on this track and I would say that this is the most "Opeth" sounding song in their catalogue. It's hard to describe. This song is also the most familiar to people who were hoping for something like their previous albums. The midsection of the song is an album highlight and in my mind encapsulates the sound of Autumn. I associate seasons with sounds, and the types of music I listen to and Autumn is always Opeth. I wouldn't have it any other way.

     Not only did this album mark a turning point in the band's lineup, but it would mark a change in their sound that would follow into 2008's Watershed, an album with even more Progressive Rock influence than this one. In 2011, Opeth would release Heritage the first of their totally Prog oriented albums, and the sound which they write music with today. Many fans were disappointed that they weren't "Metal" anymore, but I couldn't care less. They love what they do and I love listening to it. I would honestly say I'd be happy with anything they do musically and am comfortable with the way they've sounded the last few years. Because I know nothing will ever top Ghost Reveries, their pinnacle in my mind.