Opeth - Heritage
Fuck my life, what a horrible year for Death Metal. David Vincent started rapping on Morbid Angel albums, Pestilence, Decapitated, and countless other scene pillars laid eggs, we lost legends and potential future legends, and the only review I’ve written in the 17 years I’ve been doing this that anyone gives a rat’s dick about is a tenth rate Sludge band using riffs Iron Monkey threw out in 1996 because they sounded too contrived. Now I have to deal with Mikael Akerfeldt sonically coping with his impotence. Before I start doing something I never wanted to do, I want to make two facts clear. First off, I think Akerfeldt has the best Death Metal vocals ever. At least in the studio, he has no equal. Second, my favorite Opeth album of all time is 2003’s Damnation, an album with no Death Metal vocals. Why bring up these two contradictory points? Because Heritage contains no Death Metal vocals, and while I do think it’s a little foolish to have a Bugatti Veyron that you only “drive slow on the driveway,” that’s not the reason I hate it. My friends warned me, “you won’t like the new Opeth, it’s total ’70s Prog.” So when I got it home, I threw it in the stereo and put it on “shuffle.” (You see, my trusty Sony boombox was previously owned by Aleister Crowley, so on a random shuffle it generally plays the best songs first.) “I Feel the Dark” was up first. My first thought - I didn’t realize how much Contemporary Christian music owes to the vocal presentation of “‘70s Prog.” No, the lyrics here are far from Christian, but turn on your local Jesus-fucking radio station and you’ll see a frightening similarity in vocal deliveries. Up next, “The Lines in My Hand.” Not really a suitable musical companion for the lines on my mirror. I guess I’m supposed to think it noble that the band used a series of orange peels and elongated paper clips to record this album, but the production isn’t the problem here, modern or not. The problem here is mind-numbing boredom. And amidst this musical sea of baby’s-ass softness, there is not a single moment of sadness or any other emotion for that matter. Try to make it through the excruciating 8 minutes of “Folklore” without your mind wandering once. You can’t do it. Sure there’s a lot of talent on display here (some of these drum patterns are downright insane), it is an Opeth record in that regard, but I’m a substance guy, and there isn’t a single track on Heritage that feels my pain. Overrated as they may be, I will always consider Opeth to be gods among men. I want Morningrise; My Arms, Your Hearse; Still Life; and Damnation right there among many others on my death bed. But Heritage is a career low for them. I would call it their Cold Lake, but “Cherry Orchards” and “Juices Like Wine” actually hit way harder than any of the drab swill found here.
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