Review Summary: Lame and disjointed - so NOT Opteh.
To sum it up, short and sweet: this album is a huge disappointment and quite honestly, it sucks. Opeth has lost everything that made them one of the most interesting and unique bands in metal: 1 - graowls; 2 - blast beats; 3 - coherent transitions (like the one in Black Rose Immortal at 04:05 or 05:50 in The Drapery Falls, among others); 4 - emotive solos; 5 - Martin Lopez; 6 - Peter Lindgren.
Instead of having brutal blast beats accompanied by monstruous growling and face-melting heavy riffs, we have mellotrons, flutes, and even african bongos (!) combined with ***ty transitions and 70s circus jazz riffs. Seriously, what the ***, Mikael? If I wanted to hear lame, cheap 70s instruments, I'd have picked a Jethro Tull or King Crimson CD instead!
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm actually pretty openminded and I consider Damnation to be one of the best albums this band has ever released. But Heritage is just different. Heritage doesn't have many emotive, soulful moments and solos, and it doesn't have catchy pop-influenced choruses like the one in Windowpane or In My Time Of Need! Heritage is just... boring.
There are some cool aspects, like The Devil's Orchard's chorus, which I enjoyed ("God Is Dead", what a shocking novelty! OMG it sounds so evil!) or Folklore's outro, which is definitely the best part on the entire album (so emotional, epic and intense!!!) but those parts only correspond to 3 minutes, which means, approximatedly 5% of the entire album. The rest of it is pure crap. No graowls, no beat blasts, no catchiness whatsoever, no energy, no powah.
Avoid this album at all costs, unless you're an old grandpa who likes to collect 70s prog records or if you have trouble falling asleep.
