Andrew Danso

First things first, there's a reason behind my known confidence upon placing this album into my CD player, and it's not Ghost Reveries. Ghost Reveries was indeed, a great critical acclaim for Opeth, and was received within the margins of success within the metal scene, making them your no longer, 'best kept secret'. But for myself, Ghost Reveries was received with a little apathy. Perhaps a slight too much panache, and too much understanding was read within this album from myself - but then I'm being extremely harsh.

Watershed, is a quite a leap from Ghost Reveries. Many may argue that a similar "vibe", is evident from Ghost Reveries, however I disagree. Watershed achieves so much more depth than that simple example of many laden critical judgements, I've been observing over the past week. These comments, simply lack dimension in the gravity of this album. The shear dissonance of this record is absolutely astounding, it creates an oblique surreal place for us to dwell in. And it's incredibly haunting, (I've almost lost two evenings of sleep due its unparalleled frequency content) bringing us in and out of this place of dread, and horrid atmosphere. What's more interesting, is at last, you're not able to simply take a back seat, and enjoy the show. Almost every track has its haunting event as the faders begin to draw down in DB level, as the tracks finally close. What's more potent about these tracks, is that they all don't have that distinctive progressive flow about them. You can't simply put your hair down, and start thwacking your head around the place in all metallic delight, as segments of riffs instead of progressively dying, just die, and cut off with and without regression. This assists greatly on the creation of that eerie, haunting atmosphere, I am failing on conceiving and justifying. Furthermore there are sparks and mirages of beautiful Opeth, which help wildly contrast the imagery, I at least get when listening to this album.

Every single track has its highlights, and again, it would be unjust and impulsive for myself to say that 'track xx is the highlight of this album, as it helps achieve a fundamental mood change personally'. However as you would expect, this new Opeth does not disappoint on the performance area of album reviewing. It's rich, and dare I say different. This is also a credit to Åkerfeldt's song-writing, which is again ingenious and jaw dropping. Furthermore the performances by each band member individually are a delight, and deserves more than accredited.

Anyhow, my words, and indeed other fan-boy words cannot assist in fully pledging you to pick up the album, and give it a go - the words simply too weak. However Opeth, cannot seem to do a bad a record within their career, yet. Perhaps if I mention that this album is truly unique, may convince you otherwise - 5/5.