the mighty Opeth

i'm not normally a death metal fan, so going to watch Opeth with Enslaved opening for them was a bit of a leap.

let me start way back, in 2004, when a friend of mine introduced me to Opeth - now this friend listened to a lot of alternative and stuff, so i really held no hopes for this oddly-named band.. Opeth indeed! anyways, i listened to an album called 'Damnation', which only served to confuse me more because it was nothing like what death metal should sound like! "windowpane" was the first song (and remains a personal fave to date), and it left me hungry for more. so i moved on to 'Deliverance', and now it was all making sense, because "master's apprentices" was what death metal was supposed to sound like! and thus started a long drawn out tryst with Scandinavian metal..

NB - open the youtube links and listen while you read, it's like those talking books for kids!

the show was at the House of Blues in Boston (whose praise i have sung elsewhere on this blog). Enslaved is one of the better Norwegian death metal bands around, and their set was short, loud and bone-jarring. how better to describe it?

what i really liked about Opeth's set was that they moved freely between their albums and played a tight set. lead singer Mikael Åkerfeldt seriously needs to think about a career as a stand-up comedian post-Opeth - he often had the crowd laughing into it's beers with his irreverent cracks about Yngwie Malmsteen, body odor, feline pets, roadies, topless girls and ill-fated moshpits.

but i digress, because Åkerfeldt currently is doing what he does best - he sings and he plays really good music. the band stretched out their already long songs into tantric solos and blissful harmonies interspersed with a staccato double-bass that tattooed his haunting vocals into your ears. excellent stuff. i highly recommend the live albums 'Lamentations (Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire 2003)' and 'The Roundhouse Tapes' for your listening pleasure if you were so inclined.

i have to thank the internets for the setlist, because i don't know enough of their songs to commit to memory what their songs are called - they played nearly two hours non-stop - Heir Apparent, Ghost of Perdition, Godhead’s Lament, The Leper Affinity, Credence, Hessian Peel, Closure, The Night and the Silent Water, The Lotus Eater and for the encore was Deliverance. here's a fuzzy picture taken from the internets once again from the Boston show..