Opeth Discussion

H13

H13

Inspired
Ahhh Opeth.

In terms of how I became a music tragic, my path went:

Pink Floyd -> Queen -> The Offspring -> Metallica -> Iron Maiden....-> Opeth. (Then about a dozen bands after that)

Opeth blew the top of my head clean off. I hated the growls at first, but...I loved everything else so much that eventually I grew to liking the growls as well. They were my gateway band for growls and more "extreme" music.

These days I listen to some pretty intense stuff. Behemoth, Skeletonwitch, Gojira, Vader, Vektor etc. so in my mind, Opeth kinda were tame in comparsion.

For shits and giggles the other day I gave Still Life a blasting. I mean I "knew" the heavyness wouldn't be able to compete with the likes of say Behemoth and they certainly won't be as thrashy as Vader or Vektor, but for old times sake yeah?

Holy crap.

I forgot how good Opeth were "in their prime." Still Life is some seriously evil sounding stuff at times. Sometimes it's way heavier than the stuff that Gojira or Drop-Z tuned djenty crap. They just knew what chords and scales worked together to make it sound like Satan was about to swallow your life whole. Akerfeldts growls were freaking terrifying in their prime as well.

Basically: When they were doing that proggy death metal? I STILL say that shit is untouchable. Opeth still stand out and it's freaking magnificent.

Note: I know a lot of people prefer their newer, proggier stuff. However they are a COMPLETELY different band these days to what they were when they put out Still Life.

So I got home and decided to learn some Opeth riffs. I thought it'd be a bit tricky, but there's nothing TOO hard in there because most of their songs aren't THAT quick. It's not like I'm playing Vektor right? HA HA HA HAAAAAaaaaa.....

...Goddamn. Opeth do some freaking awkward shit on guitar. None of it IS particularly fast, but goddamn some of the chord shapes and riffs are just fucking stupid. It's the sort of stuff that doesn't sound THAT hard to play until you try to do it.

I was about 18 when I got into Opeth. Now I'm...*cough* a bit older and my ear is better with music. I can definitely appreciate the...weird ass chords and scales that they were using.

Where the hell did they come up with that stuff?

So I have a practical question for the music nerds here (Which...let's face it, is all of us)

Are there any particular chords or scales that Opeth abuse the shit out of? How the hell do they make things sound so goddamn terrifying all the time?!
 
I like the more mellower side, starting from Blackwater park. Heritage was a bit of a miss, but then, the last song of Pale Communion... Blows my mind. They have wonderful albums, not just single songs. They're best when listened in one go from start to finish, without interruptions and distractions. At night. Alone. In the winter. In a dark cottage in the forest. With a wine bottle. (And loud, of course.) Lovely stuff.
 
Last edited:
Opeth is certainly one of those great bands that dosent get the credit they deserve. Love there stuff always have! Though i do miss there heavy death/black metal side.
 
Still Life and Deliverance are great records. Watershed is also decent.
Can't help with scales right now, but you could look into some old Scandinavian folk songs. Some of it is pretty haunting.
 
nojyeloot said:
*opens thread, pops head in*

Steven Wilson

*leaves thread*
Click to expand...

They got pretty buddy-buddy for a while there. I'm not a big fan of his vocal contributions to Opeth to be honest. They're not BAD but they'd sound better if it was Mikael.
 
I don't know if they abuse any certain chords or scales, but it seems like Mikael is always trying to write with chords that use all 6 strings. Even on heavier stuff, there are always interesting flavors to all the chords, when most other "heavy" bands might just resort to power chords. I feel like the guitar harmonies on some of the older stuff tended to go for the same type of sound, but to me the songwriting got a lot more diverse after Still Life.

I know he used an open tuning on several Ghost Reveries songs. I don't know if it was because he already had chords/riffs in his head and couldn't play them in standard, or if he did it to provoke new sounds. Either way, there is a ridiculous attention to detail.
 
If I think about it, practically all the time I've put on in learning Opeth songs has been on just a handful of songs from Blackwater Park, Deliverance, and Watershed. Yeah, the chords are weird and fascinating, the rhythms are surprisingly complicated, and each song has like an album's worth of ideas, compared to other bands.

I used to consider Rush and Metallica songs to be fairly involved as rock goes, but I've knocked out "Circumstances" and "Xanadu" pretty quickly compared to the time I've spent on something like "Master's Apprentices" which I still don't have down all the way through.

Mikael is said to have an astonishingly large and eclectic album collection, so I'm sure he's got a headful of stuff that none of the rest of us have even imagined.

And this is going to sound weird, me being a guitar player and all: One thing that really made me appreciate "Ghost of Perdition" was playing it on drums in Rock Band (back when that was a thing). Martin Lopez had such an incredible feel, and it gave me a totally different perspective on the song and arrangement. I really wish there had been more than that one Opeth release for the game...
 
They often reference Nick Drake as a big influence, and some of the strange chords and vocal lines definitely bear that influence. They're a great example of a band who are more than the sum of their influences.
 
With this kind of music I've just never been able to get past cookie monster vocals. I'm impressed by their vocal techniques, as it takes skill not to ruin your voice like that, but....., no, just not for me.
 
i know mikael used to work in a guitar store, i would imagine hanging out playing guitar all day would help out a lot with all of that. i'd kill for another album like blackwater park or still life (since they're basically the same album) but i know it won't happen, so i'll go listen to them instead!
 
H13 said:
Ahhh Opeth.

In terms of how I became a music tragic, my path went:

Pink Floyd -> Queen -> The Offspring -> Metallica -> Iron Maiden....-> Opeth. (Then about a dozen bands after that)

Opeth blew the top of my head clean off. I hated the growls at first, but...I loved everything else so much that eventually I grew to liking the growls as well. They were my gateway band for growls and more "extreme" music.

These days I listen to some pretty intense stuff. Behemoth, Skeletonwitch, Gojira, Vader, Vektor etc. so in my mind, Opeth kinda were tame in comparsion.

For ****s and giggles the other day I gave Still Life a blasting. I mean I "knew" the heavyness wouldn't be able to compete with the likes of say Behemoth and they certainly won't be as thrashy as Vader or Vektor, but for old times sake yeah?

Holy crap.

I forgot how good Opeth were "in their prime." Still Life is some seriously evil sounding stuff at times. Sometimes it's way heavier than the stuff that Gojira or Drop-Z tuned djenty crap. They just knew what chords and scales worked together to make it sound like Satan was about to swallow your life whole. Akerfeldts growls were freaking terrifying in their prime as well.

Basically: When they were doing that proggy death metal? I STILL say that **** is untouchable. Opeth still stand out and it's freaking magnificent.

Note: I know a lot of people prefer their newer, proggier stuff. However they are a COMPLETELY different band these days to what they were when they put out Still Life.

So I got home and decided to learn some Opeth riffs. I thought it'd be a bit tricky, but there's nothing TOO hard in there because most of their songs aren't THAT quick. It's not like I'm playing Vektor right? HA HA HA HAAAAAaaaaa.....

...*******. Opeth do some freaking awkward **** on guitar. None of it IS particularly fast, but ******* some of the chord shapes and riffs are just ****ing stupid. It's the sort of stuff that doesn't sound THAT hard to play until you try to do it.

I was about 18 when I got into Opeth. Now I'm...*cough* a bit older and my ear is better with music. I can definitely appreciate the...weird *** chords and scales that they were using.

Where the hell did they come up with that stuff?

So I have a practical question for the music nerds here (Which...let's face it, is all of us)

Are there any particular chords or scales that Opeth abuse the **** out of? How the hell do they make things sound so ******* terrifying all the time?!
Click to expand...
i'd think it's possible to praise one type of music without taking shots at another.
 
H13 said:
I'd also think it's possible to not get upset when somebody has a different taste of music to you.
Click to expand...
i'm not upset, and we all have different tastes....but i can not enjoy something without calling it crap. just because it's not my preference doesn't mean it's garbage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom