Opeth - Watershed

I have lived with Watershed for a couple of weeks now and feel like I can give an educated opinion. Åkerfeldt and company have given us a superbly crafted progressive metal album. “Progressive” is the key word here. My first thought when I finished the album the first time was, “Wow, mellow.” That’s not to say there aren’t some brutal moments, there are a lot of them. “Heir Apparent” “The Lotus Eater” and “Hessian Peel” contain long segments that are as heavy as anything Opeth has done before. I think the “mellow” impression comes from the vocals. Mikael uses his clean voice at least as much if not a little more than his death-growl on this album, even over some of the heavier music. I’m a huge fan of his clean vocals, so that is not an issue for me, but it is a difference from the Opeth of the past when the death vocals were generally for the brutal music and the clean vocals used for acoustic sections. Some of the acoustic breaks are absolutely gorgeous with wonderful guitar work. That also adds to the mellow nature of the record.

The opener “Coil” was a surprise as it could be on “Damnation.” Eerily beautiful with a female vocalist (Natalie Lorichs) singing the lyric for the second half. Per Wiberg’s keyboards are used throughout the album to great effect, a continuation of the keyboard use on Ghost Reveries. “Burden” contains some moments in both the keys and the vocals that remind me very strongly of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, so much so that I wonder if it is an homage of sorts. Again, not a problem for me as ELP is one of my favorite prog bands.

Watershed is a great album. In it, Opeth has moved even further toward their progressive side. The brutality is still there, but is balanced evenly with beauty. This review is not based on the special edition with bonus tracks, I didn’t want to wait that long!

Side note: I saw Opeth in May on the Progressive Nation tour (Columbus, OH) with Dream Theater, Between the Buried and Me, and 3. They were fantastic live. They played “Heir Apparent” from the new release and it killed! I immediately went home and pre-ordered the album from Amazon.

i got both edition the day it came out and this record wons anything else you will hear this year probably

I'm not a huge fan, but I agree, this album is great!

and so you should its awesomely good