Opeth new album!!

Exactly what I said. People hate them now only because they're not making metal music anymore.

the singles I heard were really fucking boring, same with most of heritage and pale communion

I will listen to it and I'm going to see them in a couple of months, but they are so far past their peak now it's sad

and no, it's not just because it's not metal, it's because it's generic prog. I'd much rather listen to king crimson, yes or camel. shit if I want dark-ish revivalist scandinavian prog, anekdoten, anglagard and landberk did that a lot better 20 years ago

their new stuff is uninspired and they're passing it off as mature and experimental

oh i've listened to Trains many, many times. believe me. In Absentia was my life back in 2007. i don't really hear it. if anything, i hear a long lost b-side from Aqualung, and anything that we get in 2016 that reminds me of Jethro Tull is greatly appreciated.

Can you recommend more Scandinavian prog? Not too familiar with Scandinavian music that's not metal or folk.

I hate them because they are making shit music now. It's like Mikael just picks a couple albums from his record collection and tells the guys, "Hey lets just copy these k." The one positive thing I can say about this album is that the organs were toned down, but that can't save the songs from Mikael's now lazy and formulaic songwriting, or his apparent need to make songs last as long as he can cause they are a prog band. Both he and Steven Wilson should be castrated for what they are doing to prog.

this guy knows it. I don't even care if they do metal or not... their music is totally dull at this point. Uninspired as fuck
also don't forget to mention beardfish, one of the most fun bands out there

literally every band you just listed isn't any more or less "derivative" than Opeth's last 3 albums are.

the bands I listed are my favourite. also bo hansson and kaipa if you want some actual 70s prog

motorpsycho, beardfish, paatos, seven impale and gazpacho are all great. the flower kings are ok but it's pure yes worship. also check out jaga jazzist if you want something a bit different. more nu jazz than anything (if the name doesn't give that away), but they have some prog sensibilities. they were on omar rodriguez lopez's label for a while. paatos is kinda left field as well, mixing prog with portishead-style trip hop

that's not what I'm saying. I acknowledged that they're all revivalist, their music is simply better. they wear their influences on their sleeve but it's not soulless painting by numbers

>their music is simply better. they wear their influences on their sleeve but it's not soulless painting by numbers

i literally cannot understand your thinking. you just praised Anekdoten, who's last album just made me wanna go listen to The Raven That Refused To Sing instead.

I said 20 years ago, not their last album

I haven't listened to Opeth's last two albums, but I've heard singles and liker them. I've noticed that both Opeth and Steven Wilson get a lot of hate here and I know why. Disliking a band just because it's cool to do so and other people do it is not really a valid reason to do so. I really enjoyed Hand. Cannot. Erase and I saw it played live back in April. Steven Wilson's voice may not be everyone's cup of tea, but no one seemed to complain about that in the Porcupine Tree days. And how exactly are they butchering prog? By the way, Steven Wilson's new album is coming out soon and he may surprise us or the haters in particular.

Band hasn't been good since Ghost Reveries.

fuck you, Steven Wilson's great. his last two albums were very much king crimson and pink floyd worship, but still great albums in their own right, which is more than can be said for opeth.

I think Mikael's already been castrated

I haven't listened to 4 1/2, but he said to the audience back in May, when I see him live, that the aforementioned album is Hand. Cannot. Erase ''deleted scenes''. I hope I won't be disappointed when I finally listen to it.

Sorceress would've been a great album had it been released in 1975, let alone today. It doesn't matter the era that an album was released in, the other thing that matters is quality. Sorceress (as well as Heritage and some parts of Pale Communion) all successfully achieve the one thing that has always made Opeth one of the best bands post-2000: a bleak, unsettling atmosphere. If a band can create an album that makes me want to live inside of it, then it's a success. The move away from metal has done well for them, especially since Watershed was just a little bit too cheesy for its own good.

Not sure if that's true at all. Steven Wilson and Opeth are among my favorite artists of all time, and as much as I hated Sorceress, I found Hand Cannot Erase to be brilliant and a perfect 10/10. The thing is not cool to hate them (I speak for myself), I'm just admiting the two last albums by Opeth are simply bad music, unspiring shit, retro wankery. If you liked their last 2 records, that's fine, I just don't.
I guess this guy got it right:
>their music is simply better. they wear their influences on their sleeve but it's not soulless painting by numbers
Vemod by Anekdoten is totally a King Crimson ripoff, but they manage to sound fucking great and their compositions are actually pretty good.

sorry, I meant HCE and Raven, I didn't count that as an album. it was pretty good, though. the first track was easily good enough to be on the album, it just didn't fit. there are some older porcupine tree demos as well I think

the difference is that early anekdoten had energy. I guess it's an unfair comparison since they were early in their career and we're comparing them to opeth 12 albums in. but mikael now feels like a guy who's happy with his accomplishments and convinced whatever he does is gold no matter what.

steven wilson is equally up his own ass, but he's always been that way and it hasn't made his music any worse

Hand Cannot Erase was good, I will concede that, but his other solo work is just boring prog worship with no originality. Sure, it is technical and takes a lot of talent to play, but why would I listen to any of his albums over the albums they imitate? As for Opeth, it's not so much that their music is bad, it's more that they were pioneers in prog and extreme metal, and now they are essentially giving us tribute albums and acting like they are blessing us with another masterpiece. I can handle a prog artist being pretentious to an extent, because they all are, but Mikael and Steven have actually taken it to a new level of douchebaggery.

is Strange Brew a Cream cover? if it isn't, I won't listen to this album

Hand Cannot Erase was a step down from TRTRTS though. Hand Cannot Erase was an exceptionall well-made album, no doubt, it sounds like it took 5 years to make instead of the 2 or 3 that it did. But it just wasn't as engaging or striking as it's predecessor (or parts of Grace for Drowning, which can be filed safely under "double albums that would've been better as single albums".)

Plenty of people love Damnation, the new stuff just sucks. And metalheads in general don't like Opeth in the first place

no, its a decent prog track that fails to end well and actually demonstrates perfectly whats wrong with Opeth now

The Raven is actually his worst IMO. Some cringeworthy moments on that album.

>but his other solo work is just boring prog worship with no originality
honestly you could only think that if you haven't actually listened to insurgentes. has way more in common with post-punk than prog. the raven, sure, but it's still a fantastic album

originality isn't what matters to me so much. most albums in any genre aren't going to be original. what I like is songwriting and sincerity, and I think steven is still at the top of his game in that sense

>they are essentially giving us tribute albums and acting like they are blessing us with another masterpiece
agreed

For what it's worth, yeah none of their new stuff is at the level of Damnation. But i tend to put Damnation alongside ITCOTCK, Aqualung and Frances the Mute as one of the greatest prog albums of all time, so i doubt they would be able to reach those heights again.

As much as i love their new material, i'll say this: Their current top 5 for their career is probably untouchable. (Damnation > Ghost Reveries > Morningrise > Heritage > Blackwater Park)

are you fucking kidding me, that doom riff is one of the best things they've ever written.

really? found the title song to be very moving and the opening track is fucking orgasmic

>Some cringeworthy moments on that album.

Can't think of a single one, just some beautiful shit.

>i tend to put Damnation alongside ITCOTCK, Aqualung and Frances the Mute as one of the greatest prog albums of all time
you need to listen to more prog

Well then list shit that i should be listening to.

This. Damnation is incredible, and legit metalheads (especially on Cred Forums) seem not to like opeth so much. It's mainly the people who are specifically into prog metal that worship them

Who needs the rest when you got the best?

I guess originality was a bad word. Personality? I guess my point is that there is really not too much of his solo work that I feel only he could have done. Very talented musician, has definitely earned his place among the greats, but all I have felt since The Incident is disappointment.

>anime pic

...actually, nevermind that. i never get good recs from you fags.

all of luminol for me

sure, personality makes sense. I just completely disagree with you. the incident is shit but his solo work probably accounts for most of his better albums since in absentia. you should give them another chance

Luminol is a fucking JAM. it's what dream theater would be if they were ever good.

I think you misread something - I said that I haven't listened to Opeth's last two albums in full. Well, it's a meme to hate them and people are hungry for imaginary points on a Chinese cartoon image board and they hate or pretend to hate them quite a lot. I had nothing but respect for you, until you used that term - wankery. It just ruined otherwise good and valid arguments. I'll definitely have to listen to Opeth's latest albums soon. Haven't really listened to them since last year. I've got 8 more Zappa albums to go and then I'll go back to Opeth. While I was writing this, I saw your response where you called Mikael and Steven pretentious and again, it's one of those words that ruin perfectly good arguments. Here's the best, although not mine, response to the term of pretentiousness in music:
I don't get this notion of pretension in music. As if making sounds has any inherent importance or significance. If an artist's art is "pretending" to be more important than it is, then it implies that there is some baseline importance that it truly is. If you try to look for objective importance in music, then I'm not sure there's much to go on. Objectively it's just sounds that make you feel feels, so is every work that goes on "deeper" themes than just raw emotion pretentious for it?

Using Floyd as an example, the lyrics to Piper are for the most part as unpretentious as can be, it's about gnomes and bikes and shit. But the music certainly suggests something more than raw emotions, some would say there are statements about consciousness in the music. Whether there really is isn't my point though. My point is that any defintion of pretension seems to cause a really low threshold for being pretentious, making most bands pretentious to some degree.

I personally place a pretty high importance on music and find that there aren't many pretentious artists, if any.

not even close. dream theater is sci-fi shit with solos every ten seconds. luminol has that more tasteful medieval king crimson sound

I actually think neo-opeth is a good example of pretentious. just read an interview with Mikael, seriously. he talks about how he thinks there is no one on their level in music any more.

7/10

It's fine, but nothing better than you'd expect a 20+ year old prog band to make

>implying anime pics are bed

Better get your eyes checked desu

>bed

Damn the irony

I should add even though I've been shitting on new opeth ITT, I still think it's pleasant on the ears. good background music I guess.

it's just that I get shivers listening to just about every album up to watershed (including damnation, it's not a metal thing). heritage and pale communion just don't have that pull, and what I've heard from sorceress doesn't either. it's weird because I even love storm corrosion, which gets unfairly ignored

I am not the same guy who stated the thing about pretension in music. But you have indeed written solid arguments. When it comes to pretension, it doesn't bother me at all, because in the way I see, putting some effort and meaning to your music is not a bad thing. Thing is some artists make it the wrong way, by overstating that their work is way more deep than it actually is. Take HCE for instance. All that album conception about a lonely lady in london who has been forgetten yet nobody seemed to notice is kinda bullshit since the album does not delivery that in its lyrics neither in its music itself. But yea, I agree with you.

Just to make it clear, when I say wankery I don't mean to make a meme out of it, I'm just trying to state "way technical stuff with no meaning to it whatsoever" when I say that. What's your problem with that word? I'm guessing is Cred Forums abusing this word so much to create dank memes.

Soft Machine albums 1-3
Focus 2-4
VdGG 2-5
Gentle Giant 4-8
King Crimson w/ John Wetton
Egg - The Polite Force
Henry Cow discography
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells
Supertramp - Crime of the Century, Breakfast in America
and of course the classic Yes and Genesis albums

all better than everything you listed except ITCOTCK

mega link?

>yet nobody seemed to notice is kinda bullshit since the album does not delivery that in its lyrics neither in its music itself.
completely disagree. it's what makes the album powerful to me. songs like routine, home invasion and ancestral capture loneliness very well. the concept also works much better live with the movie thing going on in the background

>Gentle Giant 4-8
>King Crimson w/ John Wetton
?????????????????????????
More like Gentle Giant 1-7 and King Crimson's discography

concept was absolutely not clear. shouldn't need a movie to get the concept of a concept album across correctly, it's meant to be listened to, not watched.

no, I got the concept both ways, I'm just saying the movie enhances it.

also if a movie was made alongside it, it's meant to be listened to and watched

youtu.be/z5GZbk54qmc
The concept wasn't clear? I'd have to disagree.

The movie was made way before the actual album.

where was the movie on the albums release day? seems like if it was meant to be listened to and watched, they would have been bundled together

point still stands

don't be naive, it's still a business, he wants you to pay for a tour ticket by making the movie exclusive to the live show. if it was only made to be listened to in isolation there wouldn't be a movie

omfg i love this album so much
that spoken word part gimme goosembumps every single time

you can always make your own list

also I counted wrong, Interview shouldn't be in there

I saw Steven Wilson in April on his H.C.E. tour and there's no specific movie that accompanies the album. It's all made up of his music videos for the album. And the movie Steven was referring to is this one and it has nothing to do with the album and the current tour, other than being an inspiration for the album.
Dreams of a Life
imdb.com/rg/an_share/title/title/tt1819513/

You mean the music videos that make up a narrative whole and feature the same actress? I saw the tour, too. The documentary is not the movie I'm talking about.