Battlelore would have been good too, except that theyre exclusively Tolkien-metal

Blackwater Park was my second Opeth album. The first one I bought was Damnation. If anyone knows anything about that particular album, you know that it doesn't have a single growled lyric, and is actually very subdued. I bought it completely blind, not even knowing that Opeth was a metal band… Anyway, I fell in love with Damnation, and immediately bought Blackwater Park. I was completely shocked when I heard the darker side of Akerfeldt's voice. It took a while for the growling to grow on me, but I was drawn instantly to the melodies.

Everyone has their own opinion, and yours is just as valid as mine. Personally, I appreciate the way Akerfeldt moves from destructive fervor to sublime mellowness. It makes me think of someone exploding with the emotion of deep angst, being completely spent from such, and then pausing in a moment of lucidity and reflection.

@ Sammy: Pay special attention to "The Drapery Falls" - The crystal clear words "Spiralling into the ground again, like autumn leaves left in the wake to fade…" with an explosion of drums on the last word.
Also listen to the haunting echoes and pensive guitar riffs near the beginning of the last track "Blackwater Park," and see how it builds into one of the most amazing finales of all time.

Anyway, not sure exactly what you don't like about the album, but if it's too harsh for you I would recommend "Damnation" - it's totally mellow and as a result shows off the diversity and sheer talent for songwriting the band has. If you find any redeeming quality in the aforementioned albums at all, then I would wholeheardtedly recommend their latest - "The Grand Conjuration." Not quite as memorable as "Blackwater Park" imho, but awfull darn close.

I'm warming a little more to it. I dont have a problem with growls, in fact I prefer that style of vocals most times. Some cds just dont click with me at the time I buy them, so they get shelved. I bust them out again in a few months, and sometimes it's the best thing Ive ever heard. It all has to do with my particular personal situation at the time. Do the lyrics click with my mindset, am I into extreme heaviness or am I mellow at the time, fast crunch or slow doom, am I looking for male and female alternating vocals or something different? Whats my stress level? LOL

Happened with My Dying Bride's "Turn Loose the Swans". Hated it the first couple weeks I owned it. Picked it up 6 months later, now it's in my top 10 of all time. I'm strange like that!

Werent we talking about some game or something/???

Lol. Yeah, so um…. That Witcher game looks cool. I'll probably get that.

Now back on topic j/k!: When I mentioned Opeth's latest album I was talking about "Ghost Reveries," "The Grand Conjuration" is just one track on that album. My bad..
When you mentioned male/female alternating vocals my first thought was of Lacuna Coil. They are probably already in your collection but if not, drop everything right now and go buy one of their albums!! :nod:

Games? There was a game in this thread? I've been using it to make notes on possible heavy deathy metal groups I might need to know about for that CD I plan to play during my cremation. :)

Imho the new nightwish isnt so bad i.e "bye bye beautiful" and "the poet and the pendulum" are quite good. Anette looks like a teenager in the amaranth allthough shes 36(!). I thought it was an error when I read it from the bio. I was sure she was like early 20s.

Tarja is releasing his own single "I walk alone" just right now and album "My winter storm" later this fall:

Apparently the single was on TV last week but I havent seen it yet.

EDIT: Heres it in the you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCuqT2H_-w0

The songs are a bit cheezy. Nightwish has new songs like "Bye bye beautiful" to tarja and now tarja is doing "I walk alone". And som say that only computer games are cheezy so…(hahaa managed to go back to topic)

Certainly there are games that have non-cheezy proportions i.e silent hill 2 comes to mind instantly. I did a lot of thinking while playing and after finishing it. It had pretty heavy themes like child abuse.

Vibeke Stene left Tristania as well, what's it with these classical metal dames breaking our hearts! And people thought that she was going to be the new NW singer too, what a doublecross that would have been. Oh the Drama!!!

Okay folks, what Jabberwocky wrote about Opeth a couple posts back made me think of Ambeon again. I don't know Opeth, I don't even know if it's possible to compare them, and it's not really metal either (some kind of darkish, progressive folk metal), but I dare you all to listen to Ashes by Ambeon. More samples and info on the official homepage.

The time I've spent listening to that beautiful voice must be an eternity.

Aside from that, it would probably be a good idea to move some posts of this thread to a new "Metal" thread or so. Then again, the topic is a music video, so maybe all is fine. ;)

Not only fine, an education. :) Nice, almost eerie vocals.

@ Arhu. The first two notes from her voice and I was hooked. Where can I get the whole album? The website says that it is out of print!! Maybe I'll search eBay later on.
Anyway, that pretty much sums up my favorite genre: "some kind of darkish, progressive folk metal." ;) It's weird because I'm about the most normal looking person there is… no piercings, no tattoos, short hair, and I'm a positive upbeat person… but I really get into Goth music and metal rock. (Although my musical tastes run the gamut of just about everything, except for country.)
This thread got me listnening to Opeth again - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_L…Opeth_album%29 . The album "Still Life" is medieval story of a man who is opposed to the (I assume) Catholic Church and is therefore branded a heretic. He returns years later to the town where his lover resides and finds that she has become a nun. The album follows the course of his trying to persuade her to come away with him. The church, however, learns of his return and forms a witch hunt to end his life once and for all….

As for that cheesy notion… there's some in every genre of music… depending on your point of view, some can be cheesier than others. For instance, imho, a story of gothic romance and poetic lyrics are much less cheesy than a country song that sings "She thinks my tractor's sexy!" There's a whole lot of cheesyness going on in R&B too when they start throwing in all kind of jargon describing people shaking their backsides… but again that's just mho ;)

It probably bears mentioning that the singer was 14 when she provided her voice and lyrics to the project, which I find kind of amazing.

Yes, the album is out of print, which is very unfortunate. You could write to Arjen directly and persuade him to bring it back into print. ;) Otherwise I guess you do have to look elsewhere like eBay…

Ashes is my second favorite from the album, my number 1 is the first track.. pure bliss. One of those rare songs, which when first heard makes you stop doing what you are doing and just listen - usually I let my music play in the background. The sample from the site isn't too good unfortunately.


On topic: The Witcher looks interesting indeed! ^^

She was that monster (Shtriga) before, her body was almost transformed back but not the mind - so he checked if she still has teeth, but she attacked Geralt with claws ( if you look at every clip you will se that one of her hands is still Shtrigish (you can do it in Windows Movie Maker). It was described in A.Sapkowski's book ,,The Last Wish" - It is first book about the Witcher.

Vader?!?!


Oh … never mind .. .

Somebody needs to make that photo their avatar! :lol:

Ok, thanks. I just watched the whole trailer (not the music video) and saw how the story played out so now I understand.

Why would I want to do that ?!?!

Sweet! I would have taken it for myself but Darth Potatohead doesn't exactly fit with the whole "Jabberwocky" motif. :thumbsup:

"The Witcher" and Vader … two things (out of few) that make me proud of being a Pole :] By the way, the funny thing is that "The Witcher" is probably going to be the first good game that comes out of Poland and it will be based on the best fantasy book ever written in Poland ;]