Review Summary: I can't see the meaning of this life I'm leading...
I think sad music and I get along quite well.
I’m not sure if it’s because generally I’m not the most chipper human being, or because I use art as a means to explore misery, or because I find music that explores negativity to be fascinating in it’s own right, as it’s mainly a window into the mind of someone else who has likely endured pain that you yourself are entirely unfamiliar with. Sadness is also an emotion that, if explored incorrectly, can be written off as being rote or one-note.
‘Damnation’ is not either of these things.
After listening to ‘Blackwater Park’ I was pretty sure I got what Opeth was all about. Combining death metal with progressive rock to create melodic odysseys that can take you just about anywhere the band feels like going. The varying mixed usage of death metal vocals and more typical prog vocals make their songs feel versatile and unpredictable. And while I do love Blackwater Park intensely for seamlessly combining both genres, I must admit that I enjoyed their ventures into Progressive Rock to be a bit more adventurous because of their darker instrumentation. I remember thinking ‘gee, I really liked that album, but boy I’d really like it if they indulged their softer side and made an album that was a little less intense musically but played up the emotion’ and lo and behold, I got just that.
It’s funny because, from a band that was largely focused on metal, or at least a mix, I can imagine this must’ve been incredibly unexpected when this album dropped. Immediately, you know you’re in for something different, the opening chords of ‘Windowpaine’ progress into this somber yet groovy tune that honestly wouldn’t be entirely out of place on an album by ‘The Cure’ but even then the energy here is more reserved. Mikael’s vocals here are soft, slow, but still poignant and focused. You can tell the death of his grandmother was a prominent influence here, as death is a huge motif of the album, but Damnation is aptly titled, as it focuses not entirely on death, but on, well, Damnation.
Funny considering ‘Damnation’ isn’t exactly a title that evokes the softer and more emotionally charged approach that was taken here. But Damnation is also about resignation to an unfortunate fate. It paints a portrait of wandering a lost and hopeless place where only your sorrow and your mistakes remain. It feels like you’re watching a film at times, and even contains a song entitled ‘Ending Credits’ as to imply the intended cinematic nature.
In the song ‘In My Time of Need’ the almost robotic delivery of the lyrics in the chorus and refrain show us that the main character in this story is a man with literally nothing and no one. What I find interesting about this whole album is that this character’s lamenting is really at a minimum, and is more him trying to deal with his newfound position. It’s a lot less ‘ugh here is the weight of my emotions, FEEL them! Feel sad!’ and more ‘How in the hell do I deal with this?’ This more mature angle makes the entire album feel a lot more mature, as endeavors like this often run the gambit of sounding like a depressed 14 year old emo kid. Instead we get something else, understanding and rationalization. At my lowest points, I can indeed remember times where I was more keen on trying to understand my emotions rather than revel in them.
The instrumentation, across the entire album, is nothing short of sublime. This was the first album where the vocals and guitar were entirely clean, and it’s utilized to great effect. My favorite piece of the sound here though is the fantastic use of the mellotron, as it’s barely recognizable from its more well-known uses in bands like King Crimson, here it’s used as if it’s a lamentation, a ghostly, wailing cry that rings out in tune with the melodies. If they had to trade some of the rawness of their sound, they did it by exchanging it with inventiveness.
As it continues, songs like ‘Death Whispered A Lullaby’ seem to paint us a picture of the setting of this story. A lonely dark place where lost souls gather is affixed as the location for this purgatory-esque story of a man wandering the afterlife and attempting to deal with the crushing reality of it all. The heaviest the band gets is on the slightly faster paced cut ‘Closure’ which is a surreal and dark melody that lures you in with the hook and keeps you there with the wonderful guitar work. The abrupt transition into ‘Hope Leaves’ is a jarring one, and immediately puts the focus on the main character’s hopeless endeavor to leave due to the misery and loneliness he’s endured not being able to connect anyone and still having to deal with his own pain. It’s an effective metaphor for how depression can isolate you and further plunge you into a realm of your own hellish creation.
The album ends as it begins, on a rather melancholic note with ‘Weakness’, one of my favorite album closers ever. The mellotron here almost sounds like an organ, and the vocals here are distant and echoed, as it ends with the main character lamenting, asking for someone to kill him just so he can be rid of this place, as he no longer fears dying. And like a quickly burning candle, the song goes out, as if the flame was suddenly extinguished, perhaps alluding to the main character getting his wish.
In summation, I think Opeth crafted one of the most emotionally resonant and cathartic progressive rock albums of all time. This is up there with ‘The Downward Spiral’ in how you can take a multifaceted approach to exploring what it’s like to really feel this way. If I could thank the band, I absolutely would, as this clearly came from a place of real effort and real hardship, and was a huge stylistic departure, which is normally career suicide. Opeth may have not stuck the landing with a lot of work following this, but as far as I’m concerned, this album earned them a pass. I mean it wholeheartedly when I say this is a beautiful and haunting piece that is sure to appeal to some part of you, and on a technical level, Opeth proved how truly versatile they really were. In a world filled with sadness and tragedy, attempting to make sense of it all through the lens of creativity is probably the most valuable tool we can be given.
Favorite Track(s): In My Time Of Need, Closure, Hope Leaves, Ending Credits, Weakness
