So let’s get the title out the way, it’s Latin for ‘Poison In The Tail’, frontman Mikael Akerfeldt recorded two versions, one in English and another in Swedish and we get 10 tracks covering 70 minutes of majestic music. In nearly 30 years I’ve seen Opeth evolve from a full on death metal band to the heavy prog metal legends they are today, so to album number four of clean vocals. Opeth fans are intelligent enough to figure it out themselves, secondly having been a massive fan since the Orchid album people may think I’m a bit biased in my review, well I’m not, I don’t have to be when an album is this good. Still, one has to admire Opeth's unwavering adherence to the album's astoundingly depressive tone, Orchid being a near-brilliant ode to misery that would kick the door down for Akerfeldt and his cohorts to claim sole ownership of a well-conceived and, at the time, startlingly unique sound.First of all I’m not going get drawn into the which Opeth is better, the old or new, guttural growls or clean. Mastermind Mikael Akerfeldt's guttural growls puncture the nearly interminable arrangements with the kind of brutality that stops die-hard death and black metal fans from giving up on the lengthy arrangements completely, although with five exorbitant cuts clocking in at ten-plus minutes (three of them over 13 minutes), some fat-trimming would have kept things even remotely manageable.
And while the record finds the group searching for the razor-sharp focus and prominent emotional hook put forth on the later, classic releases My Arms, Your Hearse, Still Life, and Blackwater Park, Orchid is still an exhilarating listen, with the band meshing double-time death tempos with bleak, frostbitten riffs and moodily expansive, jazz-influenced, melodic instrumental passages sporting an abundance of delicate acoustic guitars and pianos. Fact is, these Swedes - with the opening cut, "In Mist She Was Standing," exceeding the 14-minute mark - laid their cards on the table at the beginning of the hand and still took the pot, so ambitious and convincing is the band's artistic vision. Opeth's debut, Orchid, was quite an audacious release, a far-beyond-epic prog/death monstrosity exuding equal parts beauty and brutality - an album so brilliant, so navel-gazingly pretentious that, in retrospect, Opeth's future greatness was a foregone conclusion. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. Still, one has to admire Opeth's unwavering adherence to the album's astoundingly depressive tone, Orchid being a near-brilliant ode to misery that would kick the door down for Akerfeldt and his cohorts to claim sole ownership of a well-conceived and, at the time, startlingly unique sound.
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