Blackwater Park and the Moment Death Metal Clicked For One Fan
The Best Record of 2001 Day 13: Opeth vs. Spoon
Good morning!
Today Jason Kolenda’s got the keys to the truck and will be sharing his thoughts on Opeth’s Blackwater Park as it takes on Spoon’s Girls Can Tell.
Note: As many of you saw, I recently wrote about a Best Record of 2001 challenge and noted that I'd be writing some of these up.
The plan is to do quick hits on each first-round matchup and post them directly to the page. Some will be longer, some won’t, and some might just be a handful of sentences. There'll probably be a few typos. We’ll also have a few guest posts along the way, so make sure to stay tuned for those!
Check 'em out and let me know your thoughts! Chin wags & hot takes welcome! Sharing and restacks always appreciated.
That death metal isn’t in my wheelhouse should not surprise anyone reading this. It’s a genre that's never lacked for skill or talent, but I’ve just never found a way in. What I am into is hearing people’s backstories around records. What is it about any given release that resonates? What was so sticky that years later you can't describe the album without superlatives (or utter contempt)? Where were you at (literally & figuratively both)? What was the on-ramp?
These are parts of larger discussions I could have all day- and as we go on through this year, I hope to have that become a sort of theme here. They’re important, and they matter. Sometimes it really is as easy as learning why New Order is someone’s favorite band, but zooming out, I think it helps us better understand the people we’re talking with, and in 2026, lord knows we could use all of that ya got!
So! We’ve got us a death metal album (a genre I don’t know much about), from a year that was a musical desert for me. Earlier this week, we looked at Converge’s Jane Doe, and I couldn’t finish the record, let alone find anything redeeming to say about it.
I didn’t want to do that again. One, it makes for a shitty read, and two, it’s kinda cheap. Like Converge, I kept seeing people online talking about this album in glowing terms. To hear them tell it. This is a landmark release…Changed the game forever…etc.
And I did want to hear them tell it—or rather hear one person tell it; Jason Kolenda. Some context: I run/edit an online publication on another platform, and Jason is a longtime writer. He’s also one of the resident experts on metal- and all of its subgenres- and more than once, his work has been a helpful resource in bringing into relief the appeal of death metal.
The words below the jump are all his, and appeared as part of a larger (much larger!) series. Whether you’re a long-time aficionado looking for a kindred spirit or someone like me looking for a way in, Jason’s writing should be one of your first stops. It definitely helped me see this record in a positive light.
KA—
Opeth- Blackwater Park
How am I to begin talking about this behemoth of an album? Even though it’s not #1, it’s by far the most transformative album in my collection. This album changed my life forever. That may sound like an exaggeration, but it isn’t.
Before I knew about this album, music was just a casual interest for me, like the average person — nothing wrong with that, of course. I liked a few bands, bought a few CDs once in a while, mostly radio hits and occasionally a suggestion from a friend, and that was that.
But my discovery of Opeth led to extreme metal as a whole, turning music into a lifelong obsession for me. From that point on, it was a hardcore hobby that I spent countless hours on — discovering new artists, albums, genres, making tables and graphs, and writing about them. It turned me into a music nerd. There’s no going back, and I would not want to anyway.
This obsession was far from instantaneous, however.
I never thought about the term “death metal” before discovering Opeth. I wasn’t interested in it and didn’t think much of it. But this album taught me that metal could be a lot of things I didn’t realize before. It could be interesting, complex, thought-provoking, and even mature. Despite sounding instantly off-putting to many, creating something worthwhile could still take tremendous talent. Hell, it could even be beautiful. It wasn’t just for angry, rebellious teenagers.
My Opeth introduction story is probably quite unusual. I had an online friend I used to chat with about music. There was no YouTube or streaming in those days, so we actually sent each other MP3 files that we had downloaded through a chat room. He sent me “Patterns in the Ivy,” a 2-minute acoustic interlude on this album. He proceeded to tell me that this is a death metal band, a term I was barely familiar with. I thought, ok, that’s cool, I like what I hear. I listened to this song a few times and then decided to check out more. I don’t remember what I heard next -it’s possible I just outright bought the album.
I did not enjoy the death growls at first. It took me several months to get accustomed to them. But I did like the heavy moments with clean vocals, as well as acoustic and instrumental sections. At first, I couldn’t stand the death growls and reacted like most average music listeners would—instantly repelled. For a while after that, I just tolerated them, really appreciating everything else this album had to offer. Slowly, though, I started to actually enjoy them.
For as long as it took me to appreciate the harsh vocals, Opeth was one of the best bands I could ask for to introduce me to this style of music. Fast forward to today, and I still think Mikael Åkerfeldt is the best metal vocalist out there. His growls are just monstrous, in the best possible way. His powerful, clean vocals have a hardy, roughness but exquisite richness. He can also serenade the listener with a delicate softness when necessary.
Blackwater Park is a record full of contrasting juxtapositions, both within individual songs and adjacent tracks. “Dirge for November” may be the most obvious instance of this — the meat of the song being one of the heaviest moments on the album, bookended by ultra-delicate plucking and singing on either side. “Patterns In the Ivy” — my unusual introduction to this album — is a 2-minute acoustic interlude sandwiched between two behemoth songs. And then there’s “Harvest,” a remarkable acoustic ballad in its own right. Opeth is pretty good about providing “breathers” at just the right time, before the listener gets too exhausted, and to give time to process long, complex tracks.
The musical contrasts may be my favorite thing about the band, not to mention one of my favorite things in music. But this album also has some of the best riffs in the metal world. “The Funeral Portrait” is probably my favorite, but examples can be found everywhere. Also, Steven Wilson's production of this record results in a highly polished production, another attribute that would continue to define Opeth’s career.
When I discovered this, I wasn’t used to progressive music at all, other than maybe some Tool songs. The sudden, or sometimes gradual, changes in song structure and the length of songs were another new thing for me to adjust to. Looking back, it’s unsurprising that this took so long to grow on me. It was several orders of magnitude more complex and sophisticated than the Smashing Pumpkins and Foo Fighters that I was used to.
I have often contemplated whether this album should be #1 after all. Going back through my records, I don’t think it has ever been #1 and has been as low as #6. At this point, it's still #2, although I’m constantly changing the numbers around.
Spoon- Girls Can Tell
What can I say about Spoon that I haven’t already? As far out of my wheelhouse as Opeth is, Spoon is in it. Not a whole lotta boxes they don't check for me.
Ranking the records is an exercise in futility. A fun exercise, but still... really, the only consensus is that the first one is the worst one (Telephono), and even that’s relative. From there, it gets really subjective. Maybe you got Gimme Fiction at #3, and I’ve got it at #5 (or vice versa). It’s all a game of inches!
I won’t bury the lede here; I’d put Girls Can Tell at 4 or 5. It’s a solid record. There’s no easy pick for standout tracks; it's a much more subdued record where the tracks slowly grow on you. They all sound “pretty good!” out of the gate, and before you know it, you’re spilling ink on the record and struggling to pick just one as a fave. That’s just how they roll.
But in the Spoon canon, this is a critically important record. It’s the first sign of what was to come. They’d caught a bunch of bad breaks with A Series of Snakes, took a couple of years to rework it all, and came out the other side with a new sound and a new mindset. I once read an interview (and I apologize for not being able to find it/link to it) where they noted that each member brought in new material, and the others had to guess which song it was based on. Sounds derivative, but if anything, this marks where they went from followers to setting the bar.
Intentional or not, it's a lot less derivative than earlier records leaned toward; there’s a noirish (?) feel to it all. Britt Daniels purchased his ticket for the emotive/evocative train. Musically, there’s grooves for days. A & R reps might not’ve heard a single, but it didn’t matter. Reinvention. Pivot. Whatever. This marks the moment when Spoon went from a band lost in the mix among countless others to one of the most consistently fantastic bands going.
Bottom Line:
First, thank you again to Jason for his take! This was a record I could’ve easily dismissed. Hearing a new perspective gave me a whole new appreciation for it. Still not my bag, but I get why it's so important to so many. I can’t see a scenario where Opeth pulls off an upset and moves on to Round 2, but stranger things have happened! After today, I wouldn’t be bummed to see it.
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my takes? Which one of these would you vote for? Sound off in the comments!
Check out the full bracket here.
Info on the tourney, voting, and more is here.
As always, thanks for being here.
KA—
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My wife's daughter loves death metal. Whenever I think about that and death metal, in general, I remember the first (dive) bar I worked at. This regular, also a fan of death metal, always played it on the jukebox. And I always skipped it. He was never happy about that.
"Steve, I'm sorry. I can't let you do this to everyone else in the bar!"
Opeth is one of those bands that's very difficult to define. Probably one of the reasons why I love them. Their progressive nature is the biggest. I'm also half Swedish, so there's that.
Blackwater Park is my favorite of theirs. "Bleak" is about as beautiful as it gets with any type of heavy music. I'm very sorry to have missed them on this last tour.