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Opeth: Still life

22/10/08 || The Duff

Opeth was one of the first extreme metal bands I ever experienced, if their death metal vocals are anything to go by. For all intents and purposes, this should be in the classics section, as it is the final great Opeth album with nary a flaw to be found; however, seeing as “My Arms, Your Hearse” didn’t make it as a classic, I don’t reckon this should either, in no small part because I’ve already turned in two of the sort this week and, well, probably 99% of you already know what an Opeth album sounds like thereby justifying a brief and succinct review that shall not bely my laziness – the point here is to tell you of one of the finest concept albums created, not dissect the individual segments of the Opeth standards, as we’ve all been there and bought the t-shirt.

So, Still Life, an album about some poor fella who gets it on with a dose of the ripe poonani, Melinda, a woman who is unfortunately betrothed to another. The album recounts the tale of their forbidden love, so I’m guessing some double-teaming was at hand, being the randy little coquine she clearly is. The village condemns such a union, being all against the fine art of spit-roasting, and responds by hunting the couple down and forcing said poor fella into exile whilst murdering the lass with whom he has shared the mega-sexy-time. The death of the philanderous nympho is subsequently avenged upon our angered protagonist’s return, who rampages through the village and, I think, rapes and murders every single villager – I don’t reckon Mad Max could even have done better. Does he find solace at the end of it all? I doubt it, as he’s probably left to tug the one-eyed gherkin at the thought of the love he abandoned… unless he’s willing to be a tad frisky with all the cadavers about him.

The ingredients to this album are all the same as what preceded it and what was to follow – contrasts of light and dark, heavy and calm, with maybe a return to the folkish sound that was lacking on “My Arms, Your Hearse”; Mikael’s vocals were at their peak with this and the follow-up, “Blackwater Park”, adding a combination of sorrow through lost love and the torment/derangement, oddly enough, through lost love, essentially a resonant, deep crooning and throaty, death gargles, respectively (the latter of which the guy is certainly one of the leaders at performing).

The great aspect about this effort is that it can just as easily be interpreted as one complete track, as with the spotless “Morningrise” (the continuity of this disc makes it one of metal’s truest gems) and “My Arms, Your Hearse” albums, yet benefits from the high-value productions of later Opeth outputs, as well as a more distinct “harsh/clean” dichotomy – the clean tracks add to the Opeth sound more than ever before, bringing an honest, resonant beauty to such a progressive style of music whilst making “Still Life” one of the sub-genre’s most shining examples – I’m not surprised this was the one Opeth album re-mixed in Surround 5.1, as the guitar/bass tone (aside from a couple of mixing mishaps, where the music becomes muffled) is as luxuriant as can be; this album is what total serenity ought to sound like, even during the death-metal sections.

As usual, the musicianship is breathtaking; M-Lo is playing around more with his jazzy style that would fully flourish on albums like “Blackwater Park” and “Deliverance”, albums that in my opinion were vastly upgraded due to his relaxed, playful abilities. “Still Life”, though, benefits from an exceptional, all-round band performance, with every player adding to the majestic atmosphere of this piece centred around the ill ramifications of DPing (I’m spending too much time about Porno forums) a skank with a loose tongue – Mikael has often been referenced as having six fingers, and really, some of the material he has written for this album is agonizingly complicated if you are any practitioner of music, but never in a way suggesting he is attempting to molest the listener’s face; the man is a genius of musical creativity.

The bass is less flirtatious than on the two first albums, but it has been brought higher up since the more straightforward “My Arms, Your Hearse”, and so its wandering passages can very effectively be made out so as to complement the beauty of this album – the best descriptor of this album is most definitely beauty, in my opinion, like a durum gyros with andalouse, onions and olives, maybe some tomatoes too, after five pints of finely-fashioned Belgian beer; the album takes the sorrow of “My Arms, Your Hearse” and melds it with the melodic sensibilities of the band’s most classic era (in my mind, the first two albums).

Many will state “Blackwater Park” as the seminal Opeth album, and I can’t agree. With “Still Life”, the band realized the perfect balance between the death metal of earlier albums and its later prog adornings. On “BWP”, they tend to lose focus, and meander too frequently, thereby forgetting the importance of the riff; “Still Life” boasts some of the most dense, energizing music the band has ever created, combining it with their trademark haunting harmonies, rather unorthodox soloing, soothing atmospheres and murky chord-strumming – this is one of three definitive Opeth albums, in my opinion, as once more they exhibited a radical shift in style with upgrades to the degrees of musicianship, complexity, arrangements and sound values, all the while keeping the most appealing elements of past discs intact; you owe this album to yourself if you are a fan of progressive, heartfelt music.

Edit: As always, I’ve completely read the lyrics the wrong way; apparently, the story is about the dude’s outcast for being ugly, Melinda’s subsequent devotion to The Jesus, dude’s return only to spy on her like a perv before serenading her with all his best moves (probably moonwalking on a gravely surface, a handstand and juggling three medium-sized oranges); she abandons her beliefs only to be killed for betraying God, dude gets angry, massacres the entire village, and is later hanged for his crimes. I wasn’t far off, but Mikael’s tale is definitely more moving than mine, I’ll give him that.

10 wishes I could have a durum right this minute out of 10.

Information
Released: 1999
Label: Peaceville Records
Website: www.opeth.com
Band
Mikael Ackerfeldt: guitars, vocals
Martin Mendez: bass
Peter Lindgren: guitars
Martin Lopez: drums

Tracklist
01. The Moor
02. Godhead’s Lament
03. Benighted
04. Moonlapse Vertigo
05. Face of Melinda
06. Serenity Painted Death
07. White Cluster

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