Opeth – Watershed

Swedish death metal band Opeth has constantly pushed the bar in the genre, never satisfied with being another cookie-cutter melody-challenged death metal band. Throughout their slow evolution into a more progressive sound, their fan base has grown by leaps and bounds. However, the band hit a road block between 2005’s Ghost Reveries and the present day, losing long-standing guitarist Peter Lindgren and drummer Martin Lopez.

Watershed has a lot to live up to with all these circumstances surrounding the band. Could the band function without the two musicians who have helped skyrocketed the band to stardom? Would the sound be radically different than previous albums?

The answer to both of these questions is a resounding “yes.” The band has taken their sound one step further, employing an increased use of clean vocals and experimenting with their trademark sound. After the acoustic-driven “Coil”, featuring the talented female vocalist Natalie Lorichs, the heaviest track on the album “The Heir Apparent” provides a jarring contrast from the light and airy sound on the opener. The band experiments with blast beats over clean vocals on “The Lotus Eater,” while praising their musical heroes from the 1970’s with the keyboard-eccentric “Burden.” All of this builds to “Hessian Peel,” which is half orchestra-driven bliss and half crushing death metal that would make Lucifer himself bow to his knees.

Watershed is another masterpiece in Opeth’s catalog, showing that the band is far from running out of steam. New guitarist Fredrik Akesson interacts well with Akerfeldt and drummer Martin Axenrot is a formidable replacement for Lopez. The rest of the band is solid as usual, with Akerfeldt’s clean vocals reaching a new level of godliness. Watershed will definitely be up there in my year-end “Best Of” list for 2008 and is a crowning achievement that will appeal to any metal fan.

Rating: 9.5/10
Label: Roadrunner
Website: www.opeth.com

By Dan Marsicano

(12 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

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