Opeth - Pale Communion
Being one of the flagship death oriented
metal bands of the past decade it came as some surprise to the metal community
when Opeth released their
surprisingly laidback effort Damnation
in 2003, which at the time was notable for its anomalous lack of guttural
growls and blast beats that had typified the band’s sound until that time. This
album and the preluding Heritage have
flown gung-ho even deeper into the eloquent chasm of progressive music (this
experiment I endorse, prog music über alles!) which gives us an even deeper look into front
man Mikael Åkerfeldt’s velvety style of magical incantation. This departure has
led to the predictable cracking open of each other’s heads and feeding upon the
goo inside amongst the metal fraternity who aren’t exactly known for being
open-minded and this album and the last have appealed to a slightly broader
audience.
Pale Communion has indeed continued this evolution from rambunctious
yet refined death metal towards a more laidback style reminiscent of bands such
as Yes and Pink Floyd. This has been achieved in an organic manner in which it
doesn’t seem like a rushed and hurriedly made end product with little thought
given to it, quite unlike another Middle Eastern peace treaty but I guess
that’s another issue.
Produced by long-time collaborator Steven
Wilson of Porcupine Tree fame (Highly recommended indeed little munchkins.
Especially his solo album The Raven Who Refused To Sing released last year
which is of a similar style to this album in the way that it features a gloriously
schizophrenic melange of genres and soundscapes) this album has distanced Opeth from the contemporary metal scene
even further, which ain’t so much of a bad thing when you think about such
luminaries such as Blessthefall but I
digress. This has included the shedding of the serpentine skin of all elements
of anything heavy in favour of something softer.
Typical of the genre, this
album features plenty of timing shifts and complex compositional techniques,
but contrary to their more arcane albums such as Orchid (and Morningrise
which is their best effort if you care to listen to my swami-like sentiments)
the song lengths have drastically decreased. Gone are the halcyon days of
lengthy John Holmes-like twenty-minute songs like Black Rose Immortal that we could sing along to in the car in a
joyous paean as we hummed along the boulevard on the way to the ice cream
parlour. Whether or not this is a bad thing remains to be seen as along with
such shining lights as Tool, Opeth
have been considered to be metal for the thinking man, but unlike the
aforementioned comparison Opeth have
shown they can expand beyond the lustrous confines of ‘pure’ metal music.
I
guess having the longest song, being the mellifluous Moon Above, Sun Below clock in at 10:52 isn’t necessarily
comparable to that of a Ramones song I guess and may indeed be too long for the
attention spans of those intellectuals who enjoy listening to their bubblegum
hit singles which It is a commendable move for a band that is removing the
gingham blouse of the tried and true methods of composition and instead exposing
their protuberantly creative and expansive side, which deviates from what
they’ve been known for in the past and they should be applauded for this
departure into a brave new world.
Despite their advancing years, Opeth have proven the oft-used mantra
true; the older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune. But like I said, there will
be plenty of brouhaha and hoopla from a section of long-time fans and
tragically for them, it appears that a return to the older style of the band
complete with guttural death growls and the sonic babushka doll of several
genres being swept under a predominately death metal flag appears to be but a
pipe dream.
By. Patrick Ogisi
