Opeth released their 9th studio album last week, Watershed. And it's a corker. It's been getting a lot of negative reviews in the fan base, I think because it's so much more than your standard death metal album. This is more like a prog album with elements of death metal. It has a lot more clean singing, a lot more acoustic guitar (still incredibly dark mind you) and more keyboards. And in my mind it's brilliant - a great step forward for the band. Especially because between this album and the last the lost their long time lead guitarist and their legendary drummer, Martin Lopez. The new guitarist is great and adds a whole new experience to the music. The drumming I'm OK with, it's no Lopez, but it's still interesting and has "the Opeth feel" to it. Even better, this album cracked the Top 10 on the ARIA charts last week (yes, death metal in the top 10 of the Australian charts).

Labels: Music