Caught In The Whirlwind
Posts tagged opeth
Best New Albums: 2008 Edition
Dec 30th 2008
It's that time again…the time where I look backwards and reflect upon this years new musical offerings. In order to be eligible for this list, the album must have been released in 2008. I might post a best new discoveries list later detailing the non-new music that I've stumbled across this year.
As far as new albums go, 2008 was a fairly slim year. Not a lot of new stuff that I was interested in getting (although I still have to check out other people's top music lists to pick up the things I totally missed through the year) but what it lacked in quantity, it made up for in quality. There's some really awesome releases this year. So without further delay…let's get right into this.
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Opeth – Watershed
My top album of this year, without any doubt is Opeth's Watershed. If anyone isn't familiar with Opeth, they're claim to fame is blending death metal elements (growled vocals, heavy riffs) with much lighter elements (clean vocals, acoustic guitars, keyboards, etc) to create music that's all about contrast. Everything has a purpose, particularly the growling which isn't overused and adds emotional impact to the songs.Watershed is their first album after losing 2 out of the 5 members and replacing them, so I was a little worried about the direction it would go. As it turns out those worries were totally unfounded. This album is totally Opeth, but it's something different too. They're progressing their sound while maintaining the elements that make their music special and unique.
Probably the best part of this release is it's composition. It plays really well for listening as an album. It's very heavy up front (after a short acoustic introduction) followed by a very mellow couple of songs and then returns to heavy territory towards the end of the album. Heir Apparent has quickly become my favorite Opeth song.
So, in conclusion, this was far and away my favorite release of the year.
- Ayreon – 01011001
This was the first new album I bought in 2008 and I knew it was going to end up on the list as soon as I had my first listen to it.
For those not familiar with Ayreon…this band is the brain child of Arjen-Anthony Lucassen, a man who can do pretty much everything. he plays all the instruments on this release except for some guest spots, the drums and most of the vocals. In fact, Ayreon really is all about the vocalists…17 vocalists in this case. All of Ayreon's albums are concept albums, part of a much broader story. The music is very eclectic, pulling heavily from the progressive rock genre, but there's also a lot of electronic and folk influences as well leading to an interesting mix of sounds.
This album's story weaves it's way through all of the previous Ayreon albums, referencing past efforts and story events, becoming a thread that ties the massive storyline together. Interspersed into the main storyline are several songs that seems to be disjointed, referencing the doings of current humans, seeming to try to send the point that we're all trapped in our own little worlds and that we should look up and see what's really around us more. These sections are my only real complaint about the album as they don't really fit in with the rest of the storyline.
But overall, this is one of my favorite Ayreon releases and I'll be playing it in heavy rotation for some time to come
- Frost* – Experiments In Mass Appeal
I wasn't sure if I would get this album in time to include it on the list, but thankfully, it arrived just in the nick of time about 2 weeks ago.
As the last two picks, I'll explain the band a bit…Frost* is the result of a Pop music producer and songwriter Jem Godfrey. While spending his days writing and producing jingles and theme songs for various things, his free time is spent working on progressive music that sheds many of the traditional cliches that one associates with the prog rock genre.
Their latest album is different in feel than their first, but it has the same Frost* undercurrent running through it. A little off-putting to me at first, I quickly came to terms with the new, slightly more pop oriented sound and really got into the album. Jem's hallmark is a very busy "wall-of-sound" sort of production on his albums. There's a TON of stuff going on in there, but it's mixed in such a way that it's never confusing and never becomes just a bunch of random noise.
It's not quite as unique as their first effort was, and overall I like Milliontown better, but this is a very solid effort that went a little too far into standard pop structures. I also prefer Jem's vocals to the new vocalist, but Jem still does nearly half the vocal lines on th is one, so it's not such a big downside.
- Porcupine Tree – We Lost The Skyline
Ok, so this is the part of the list where I start reaching for albums. I told you this year was pretty slim. This album is a live album, of an in store appearance of part of Porcupine Tree, performing for about 30 minutes.
What makes it really interesting is that because it's only 2 members of the band (Steven Wilson and John Wesley), they did a stripped down acoustic set with just the two guitarists, which lead to some really interesting and unique arrangements of the songs. Some work better than others, but overall, it's a very solid album and I'd like to see some of these get studio treatment, maybe as a B side somewhere.
The best part is hearing Normal played live and hearing Steven Wilson talking about how hard it is to play on guitar. And in fact, he messes up once and starts the song over to do it right.
- Apocalyptica – Worlds Collide
The only thing you need to know about Apocalyptica is contained in the opening sentence of their wikipedia page: "Apocalyptica is a Finnish cello metal band." All of the music is created with the cello and, these days, drums. They got their start working on metallica covers but eventually they started writing their own material. This album is almost entirely original material from the band, aside from a cover of David Bowie's Heroes done in German.The band shines on their non-vocal tracks, creating really heavy riffs and emotional melodies in a very unique way. Songs like Dreamer and Peace really showcase their beautiful melodic side whereas songs like Ion are really all about being very heavy. It can be hard at times to tell that all of the music is done with the cello and not an electric guitar, but…it is.
The downside of this release is the vocal tracks. They lean very nu-metal and are my least favorite part of the album. They could really do something special with vocal tracks but instead when vocals are introduced into the mix the music automatically swings into the generic nu-metal spectrum. The lone standout is the cover of Heroes which ended up quite nice.
While I really like this album, the vocal tracks dent it's awesomeness enough to where if there was anything else released this year that I had purchased, it would probably get dumped off the list.
Finally Friday
Jun 6th 2008
The first full week back at work after you've been on vacation is…not fun. But I'm very glad I made it to friday. Not much actual stuff to report this week as I've gotten really heavily back into City of Heroes again and I've been playing pretty much all my spare time to get one of my villain characters up to level 50 so that I can explore some of the new content that came in with the last update. That happened Wednesday night so now I'm laying back a little bit and recharging.
Wednesday was also the day of the new Opeth album, Watershed. Well, it was technically released on Tuesday, but I didn't listen to it until Wednesday evening because Wassy and I had planned on hearing it for the first time together.
All in all it's a very solid effort. I doesn't top Ghost Reveries for me, but I think it's tied for second place with Blackwater Park. And it keeps getting more and more of a hold on me every time I play it again. The only song I really don't get is "The Lotus Eaters" because it's a little…strange. The rest of the disc though is just top notch. I'm really glad this release didn't dissapoint because I was looking forward to it a lot.
It's kinda strange hearing Opeth on CD though, since at the Albany prognation show I was within 5 feet of them when they walked past the meet and greet line. It's the same with Dream Theater and Three now. It's weird hearing people you've stood next to and exchanged a few words with playing music on a CD on your iPod. It just makes them feel more…real.
Anyway, I hope I'm able to make it through to the end of today all right. A bunch of bad storms swept through the area overnight and kept waking me up. That was combined with a couple of bad dreams, so I'm operating on very little sleep right now. And I have a headache. Blah!
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Progressive Nation 08 – Albany, NY
May 19th 2008
Yesterday was quite a day. If you would recall, I've been planning on attending the Progressive Nation 08 tour which consists of 3 of my favorite bands (3, Opeth and Dream Theater) and one band I don't care for (Between the Burried And Me). And, as you may also recall, I had intended on going to the Washington DC show because, although Albany was closer, it was a general admission venue and I prefer seated venues to standing room only.
We had originally intended to go out to albany yesterday anyway to attend a Mike Portnoy in-store meet and greet appearance. Then Wassy was contacted by a member of the mikeportnoy.com forums. He had purchased a platnium package but couldn't make use of it because, it seems, his brother was going to the show and he didn't want to leave him hanging, so he gave it to us. $300…per ticket. We were pretty nervous that things weren't going to work out because the logistics of the situation were very unsure. We wouldn't know until after the show for sure. I had originally intended to bring a poster to have the band signed, but I was worried that it wouldn't make it through security. Which it didn't. Oh well, it would have been cool, but it wasn't the end of the world. I threw it back in my car and went in without.
Once we got in, our friend handed us his laminate back stage pass, told us where to go and it seemed like we were all set. The actual concert was very awesome. 3, the band was very cool live, as always. The sound started off pretty bad but got a lot better as it went onwards and they have a huge stage presense. It was really cool watching the number of people in the crowd cheering them on increase dramatically as the set went on. I'm glad they're getting a lot of exposure out of this show.
After their set we hightailed it over to the merch tables so that I could purchase my backup plan for signing (a paperback copy of Lifting Shadows, the official Dream Theater biography book) as well as get some 3 swag, I bought a nice t-shirt. We also hung around and Wassy bought a copy of Wake Pig and had it signed by the band. I'm planning on picking up a physical copy of The End Is Begun next week and getting that cover signed. as well.
We went back up to the tiered seating to stake out a good place for Opeth while listening to Between The Burried And Me. I really like them musically, but their screaming vocals really turn me off. Needless to say, I was happy when they had left the stage.
Next up was Opeth which was a band I had always wanted to see live. And they rocked the house. The sound was a little muddy to start with where I was at but it was adjusted pretty good by the middle of the first song. They're a really awesome live band as well, with lots of energy. Mikael Akerfeldt, their front man/main creative force is also very funny on stage between songs. I can see why his banter is considered to be stuff of legends. I liked it just as much as I liked the actual songs. They played a new song off their upcoming album which sounded really cool.
After Opeth, the wait for Dream Theater began. I was starting to get excited about the meet and greet. And getting tired because there had been much rocking out that was going on for the past couple hours and it was starting to catch up with me. But DT hit the stage and it all went away. We had a really awesome setlist, including Strange Deja Vu, Though My Words and Fatal Tragedy, the new version of Surrounded and Take The Time. Even though we had already seen about half of it at the last tour, the new stuff was very awesome.
And then came the moment of truth…the meet and greet. Would we be allowed in? Would everything run smoothly? We grabbed our stuff and headed to the meeting point while the crew was disassembling the stage. Jenny, the meet and greet rep came out and grabbed all of the VIP people and took us backstage, to a very scary looking hallway that appeared as though might have been used as a secluded hallway in the past for "taking care of" people who you never wanted to hear from again. It was also where they kept the fallout shelter.
It was at this point we realized that this was actually going to happen. Jenny started handing out DT swag, including a DT bandana and a guitar pick. We then got some snacks and candy to hold us over while the band was eating their cheesecake factory supplied food (We saw the guy walk through with a bunch of cheesecake factory bags. Somebody yelled out "They get cheesecake factory??" and he said "You already got your stuff!" and kept right on going). Jenny went over the rules. No grabbing the crotches of the band members was the one that stood out.
Then we waited some more, and while we were waiting, we got another surprise. The members of Opeth appeared and walked through our little gathering, so we got to say hi and I happened to be in the right spot to shake Mikeal Akerfeldt's hand. Then the guys appeared. We started taking pictures with them, with Wassy and myself doing ours together. She stood by James LaBrie and was all excited when he put his arm on her shoulder. She's a James LaBrie fangirl, you see.
We went back in line to get ready to do the meet and greet. Wassy had brought some art of hers to gift to the band as a thank you for the music and such (pictured to the right there), so she did that and got a copy signed for herself. I didn't really have much to say as I was kinda in awe being 3 feet away from the guys that really launched all of my current musical taste. I basically just did a lot of "Really awesome show, thanks for the music" stuff. I thanked Mike Portnoy for doing all the stuff he does for the fans, and told James LaBrie that I really loved his voice.
As we walked through, Wassy got some attention from the meet and greet manager who wanted to know more about the art and what she had done to make it. And then after that there was a manager of a production company hanging out who wanted to see it and gave her his card and told her to send him an e-mail with some more contact information.
All in all it was a very awesome night. Spoiled slightly because of the fact that we had some massive vending machine troubles on the Thruway during the return trip. We needed something to drink and first the vending machine wasn't taking dollars…then it gave me back my change in nickels, then another machine took 2 of Wassy's dollars when everything was sold out and only gave her back one…but eventually we semi-sorted it out..except for that lost dollar.
I'm still coming down off the high of meeting the band, and Opeth and everything going as well as it could have gone. And now the pressure is off for the DC show to be perfect. We're just going to go relax and have a good time that weekend, get out of town for a little while and decompress.
I leave you with a shot of my signed copy of Lifting Shadows.
Returning to Washington DC!
Feb 8th 2008
I'm just a bit psyched right now. For around five months now I've been patiently awaiting the announcement of the tour dates for Dream Theater's Progressive Nation 2008 tour. And they finally came yesterday. The news arrived while I was in my Stats class taking a test. Wassy (who was having a lot more trouble waiting than I was) sent me a very excited e-mail that there were tour dates and there was also a show in Albany.
However, it turns out the venue in albany was probably going to be General Admission and that the venue was more of a basketball arena that can also hold concerts. But by the time I got home, she had scouted out the other dates and determined that Washington DC was the way to go.
So off to DC we go. At the moment we're (myself and Wassy that is) planning on going down on Saturday, May 24th a couple days before the show, so that we have part of that saturday and sunday to do some sight seeing. The concert is on the 26th, which also happens to be memorial day. The venue is the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall, right down near the white house so it'll be easy to find when the time comes. Hopefully all of the memorial day parade activities will be cleared out by the time we need to go through. The parade runs close but not exactly near the venue.
The plan is to head home on the 27th, tired and happy. Now all we need is tickets to the show which haven't gone on sale yet. This wait until the end of May is going to kill me.
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