Review Summary: A great statement from the new lineup of a now legendary band. Easily one of the best records of 2008, but a grower. Mike shows his true genius as he mans the wheel more than ever.
It all started in the latter half of my high school years when my musical partner in crime, Josh, told me about this Swedish band that mixed death metal with acoustic guitars and actual singing. Naturally, I was curious, but for some reason I didn’t fully appreciate the sound at the time. Even though I didn’t worship the quintet and their obscenely talented frontman, Mikael Åkerfeldt, back then like I do know, some of my favorite memories to this day involve ditching rugby practice with Josh and cruising the mean streets of Sacramento blaring Still Life on his massive car stereo.
Thankfully, my tastes have matured a bit since then, and I finally got into the five Swedes’ music a few months after their last LP, Ghost Reveries, hit. It was only nine months after that album’s release, however, that percussion master Martin Lopez left the band for medical reasons. After a brief stint with drummer-for-hire Gene Hoglan, Åkerfeldt drafted Martin Axenrot, his bandmate in Swedish old school death metal revivalists Bloodbath. Almost exactly a year after this lineup change longtime guitarist Peter Lindgren departed unexpectedly. Now, with half his rhythm section and his six string soul mate gone, Åkerfeldt had a tall order in crafting an album that lived up to the standards of his band’s eight much lauded outings.
For these reasons, the chances Åkerfeldt and his newly minted crew take on Watershed are that much more shocking. Sure, the band’s signature brutality to balladry transitions are still here, but somehow said switches are both smoother and more jarring. Leadoff single “Porcelain Heart” displays this perfectly, as Axenrot blasts away harder than Lopez ever did while new guitarist Fredrik Åkesson tests his meddle and leads the track through stop start death metal riffs.
As with any Opeth album, half the fun of Watershed is following the songs’ trajectories. “The Lotus Eater” goes from whimper to bang as a faint sigh is shattered by the thickest death metal riffing the band has laid down in years. Meanwhile, Mike’s trademark sunshine/brimstone vocals clash for the spotlight until the halfway mark when the track breaks down with an ambient interlude that eventually leads into a boogie rock breakdown complete with organ solo, jazz drumming and wah-wah guitar in the background.
It is these bold decisions that vault Watershed above the expected “testing the waters” phase for this new lineup. The production is as pristine as ever where it’s needed, such as on intro track “Coil.” Complete with oboe and ethereal female vocals to compliment Mikael’s angelic clean singing, it’s probably the prettiest song Opeth has ever recorded. As for the rest of the album, the clean parts are cleaner (“Burden” is the first through and through ballad the guys have written since “To Bid You Farewell”) and the brutal parts are heavier than anything we’ve heard from Mike and Co. in a decade (see: Meshuggah-esque chugga-chuggas in “Heir Apparent”), making this a forceful push forward to a next phase in the band’s sound rather than the pensive guinea pig experiment many predicted.
