Review Summary: I hide the scars from my past, yet they sense my mute dirge. This is when it all falls apart... white hands grasping for straws...
Opeth's Still Life is many things to me. A tale of injustice set in a time long since past. A soul-crushing portrait of a man whose life was ruined by something now trivial. A heartbreaking love story, wrapped in tragedy and misfortune. It's also a musical masterpiece, wherein all pieces of the band's musical identity came together to form something truly greater than the sum of its parts. Mikael Åkerfeldt, Peter Lindgren, Martin Mendez, and Martin Lopez, the classic Opeth lineup, the quintet in which the pinnacle of the band's sound was reached, came together for the first time here. More than anything, Still Life is the sound of a band who know exactly what they're doing.
The production sees another massive step up from the already stellar My Arms, Your Hearse. In my opinion, this is as good as it gets. Producer and engineer Fredrik Nordström was at the top of his game, already having multiple At the Gates, In Flames, and Arch Enemy records under his belt, as well as My Arms, Your Hearse. And that experience really shows, as him and Åkerfeldt brought the sound of this record to a whole new level. Needless to say, it sounds fantastic.
The song's themselves are the best composed in Opeth's discography thus far by a significant margin, and even though together, they aren't my favorite collection of songs the band would release, I would go so far as to say that these are the best. The Moor flows in and out of each section in such a way that the 11 minute runtime feels like nothing, and the same could be said of pretty much every other song on the album. Benighted is an almost completely acoustic track, and is the most haunting and beautiful slow, acoustic number that band would ever pen. Serenity Painted Death is absolutely brutal and relentless, the kind of track that would fit right in on a playlist of the 'best death metal songs ever,' and is even bold enough to follow that abrasiveness up with a lighter section during the latter half.
In short, everything about Still Life works. I expressed a similar sentiment in my review for My Arms, Your Hearse, and it only rings truer here. Every risk that paid off in MAYH is amplified tenfold here, culminating in the most confident record Opeth had released thus far. The band sounds like they are watching their own masterplan unfold, every piece exactly where they wanted it, every part coming together without a moment's hesitation into one of the single greatest metal records ever released.
Favorite Tracks: The Moor, Benighted, Serenity Painted Death, Face of Melinda
Least Favorite Tracks: n/a
