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!"
lol. I love it! I used to work with a guy that would blast Deicide on purpose to troll the mall walkers. I was never a fan of opening on weekend mornings, but have to admit this made it more fun.
I was really pleasantly surprised to see a short essay on Blackwater Park here, in all places. I have often joked in the past few years that getting into extreme metal has been my midlife crisis (I turned 50 last year), and, like Jason, my way in was via something slightly more accessible to listeners not accustomed to the brutality of much death metal. Specifically, it's the band Death (like Opeth, a great entry point), who often peppered their compositions with fusion-like instrumental passages and lots of melody, especially as they went on, without ever compromising what made them great. That said, I grew up listening to a lot of hardcore punk, early metalcore, et al. in the '90s, so on the other hand, it was like being reacquainted with a cousin I hadn't talked to in decades and didn't know well but always seemed cool, at least in some ways. It's been great, though. I've gotten deep into not only death metal and its various (many) subgenres, but also black metal (ditto), doom metal (ditto yet again for the subgenres), and other variants, and honestly, it's helped me in all sorts of ways that would take me way too long to really get into here.
All of that said, I do like Opeth and have a few of their albums, but I didn't get to Blackwater Park until quite recently. It's brilliant, of course, but definitely not for everyone (what is, though?).
My other big musical obsession in recent years has been free/spiritual jazz and its many variants, so, interestingly, I love so much music that instantly repels so many people. I won't get into that too deeply here, but just saying.
Oh, and it was also nice to see Girls Can Tell on here. I don't view art as a competition, especially across such disparate genres, but that is the only Spoon album I still go back to. I loved it so much in 2001 and saw them at Maxwell's on that tour. You could still smoke in clubs back then, and my friend (who had asthma iirc) couldn't take it after 45 minutes, so we missed the encore.
I can't think of death metal without death- specifically, those who were killed at a death metal concert in Paris when uninvited visitors raided the joint...
Blackwater Park is my favorite Opeth album and "The Drapery Falls" my favorite song of theirs ever. Fun reading your journey with this transformative album. Funny how Opeth albums have gone far more prog than death metal in recent years, but still one of the greatest bands ever assembled.
Great idea getting Jason to write something about Opeth. His stuff on Medium is excellent. Opeth is one of the few harsh-vocal metal bands I enjoy. I am an old-school metal head so a lot of the newer stuff doesn’t do much for me, but reading Jason’s words makes me want to listen to Opeth again.
That said, Spoon’s Girls Can Tell is an all-time favorite of mine, so there’s no doubt who I’d pick here, even if I completely loved Blackwater Park.
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.
Difficult to define is putting it nicely! As I was putting this together, I kept waffling between calling it death metal, black metal, prog, or any combo therein.
This seems like a record that opened the door for a lot of people! It’s a universe I’ve never really ventured too far into, but it’s been awesome to hear everyone’s experiences with it.
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!"
lol. I love it! I used to work with a guy that would blast Deicide on purpose to troll the mall walkers. I was never a fan of opening on weekend mornings, but have to admit this made it more fun.
I was really pleasantly surprised to see a short essay on Blackwater Park here, in all places. I have often joked in the past few years that getting into extreme metal has been my midlife crisis (I turned 50 last year), and, like Jason, my way in was via something slightly more accessible to listeners not accustomed to the brutality of much death metal. Specifically, it's the band Death (like Opeth, a great entry point), who often peppered their compositions with fusion-like instrumental passages and lots of melody, especially as they went on, without ever compromising what made them great. That said, I grew up listening to a lot of hardcore punk, early metalcore, et al. in the '90s, so on the other hand, it was like being reacquainted with a cousin I hadn't talked to in decades and didn't know well but always seemed cool, at least in some ways. It's been great, though. I've gotten deep into not only death metal and its various (many) subgenres, but also black metal (ditto), doom metal (ditto yet again for the subgenres), and other variants, and honestly, it's helped me in all sorts of ways that would take me way too long to really get into here.
All of that said, I do like Opeth and have a few of their albums, but I didn't get to Blackwater Park until quite recently. It's brilliant, of course, but definitely not for everyone (what is, though?).
My other big musical obsession in recent years has been free/spiritual jazz and its many variants, so, interestingly, I love so much music that instantly repels so many people. I won't get into that too deeply here, but just saying.
Oh, and it was also nice to see Girls Can Tell on here. I don't view art as a competition, especially across such disparate genres, but that is the only Spoon album I still go back to. I loved it so much in 2001 and saw them at Maxwell's on that tour. You could still smoke in clubs back then, and my friend (who had asthma iirc) couldn't take it after 45 minutes, so we missed the encore.
This bracket in particular seems to have made for some really odd first round matchups.
As for a midlife crisis, one could do worse than getting into metal! Lol.
As I often say, I have no interest in cars (I live in NYC and don't drive often), so yes getting into extreme metal is a much better alternative lol.
I can't think of death metal without death- specifically, those who were killed at a death metal concert in Paris when uninvited visitors raided the joint...
I still can’t listen to Eagles of Death Metal without thinking of Bataclan. 😢
Blackwater Park is my favorite Opeth album and "The Drapery Falls" my favorite song of theirs ever. Fun reading your journey with this transformative album. Funny how Opeth albums have gone far more prog than death metal in recent years, but still one of the greatest bands ever assembled.
Thank you, Ray! All credit to Jason for helping me see this through a totally different lens.
Great idea getting Jason to write something about Opeth. His stuff on Medium is excellent. Opeth is one of the few harsh-vocal metal bands I enjoy. I am an old-school metal head so a lot of the newer stuff doesn’t do much for me, but reading Jason’s words makes me want to listen to Opeth again.
That said, Spoon’s Girls Can Tell is an all-time favorite of mine, so there’s no doubt who I’d pick here, even if I completely loved Blackwater Park.
I’m very grateful he agreed to this! Metal represents a pretty big gap for me musically, and the closest I might get to this normally would be Slayer.
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.
Difficult to define is putting it nicely! As I was putting this together, I kept waffling between calling it death metal, black metal, prog, or any combo therein.
Opeth was my gateway drug for death-metal style vocals as well. One of my absolute favorite bands.
This seems like a record that opened the door for a lot of people! It’s a universe I’ve never really ventured too far into, but it’s been awesome to hear everyone’s experiences with it.