Orchid Reviews

One of the more stunning and devastingly powerful debuts of any metal band in any genre. Though Opeth's majesty has only recently reached American audiences via Century Media, this timeless classic is a great way to hear how genius is performed. "So," you ask, "how do you really feel about this album? And don't hold back." Funny you should ask. This is downright one of the best pieces of work in extreme metal. Though they aren't wall-of-noise black metallists like many of their Scandanavian brethen, their roots in both black metal (noticeable mostly in Mikael Akerfeldt's vocals) do put them outside most circles of listeners, thus appealing to fans of bands such as Edge of Sanity, Katatonia (with whom Akerfeldt has been involved), In Flames, and others in the European scene. What sets Opeth apart from the rest is their enormity involved in the songwriting. Almost all their tracks are around eight to fourteen minutes long (with the exception of the interludes of "Requiem" and "Sillouette") and very intricate in terms of execution. Opeth writes some mighty guitar leads and very tasty riffage to base their music. Acoustic guitars spice up the material from time to time, along with some chants and clean singing. Though some death/black purists will dismiss Opeth, it's their loss. This outfit is destined for some great things down the road.

Review by John Chedsey

THE VERDICT

Highs: The beauty, the power, the creativity, are unmatched by anything else I´ve ever heard. Lows: None The Verdict: I won´t say these albums will be as special to everyone as they are to me, but everyone should get them just on the chance that they are.

This is a two-in-one review of Opeth´s first two albums, Orchid and Morningrise. Both are among my favorite albums of all-time, and it´s easier for me to just describe them as a single entity. A bit more about the band, first. Mikael Åkerfeldt is the mastermind behind Opeth, and in addition to writing the majority of the music, he plays guitar and sings. His amazing vocals can be described as "otherworldly": taking the best parts of the black metal scream and the death metal growl, he combines them into a sound that isunique, powerful, and clearly not a voice used by some guy who "just can´t sing". He also makes frequent use of his excellent, low and melodic clean voice. The lyrics are dark, semi-abstract thoughts on life and love, set against the backdrop of nature, and they fit perfectly with the atmosphere created by the music.

Now to the musical style on these albums. The first thing one notices is the length. Most of the songs fall in the ten to twenty minute range. At least that´s what it says on the player, but somehow they always seem to be done more quickly than that. Each song is a musical journey, taking the listener through a haunted forest, over a misty moor, or across a blackened lake. As expected, there are many changes in terrain and surroundings within every composition. But because of the length, the musical scenery can settle upon the listener, and grow and change in a very natural, organic manner. One of those changes is the acoustic passage, and every song on these two albums contains at least one, making the music all the more enthralling. The best way to describe the sound of the band is simply "melodic metal". Now, the melody doesn´t come in a blatantly obvious, sing-a-long form, but it´s certainly not hard to find, sort of on the level of IRON MAIDEN. And most amazingly, unlike even the most melodic power metal bands, Opeth´s music is always melodic, with guitar leads going constantly, even through the singing. Although the vocals may be considered "extreme", the music is not. It´s mostly mid-tempo, and while definitely heavy, it is in no way brutral or grating. The drumming really helps maintain this style.

In addition to creativity, there is a lot of double-bass work, and it´s some of the best I´ve heard. It´s never extremely fast or loud, it just drives the music forward. The bass also stands out, sometimes stepping to the forefront to carry a melody, and always interplaying with the guitars. The job of the two guitarists is to lead the melodic travels, sometimes together, sometimes separately. They´re never showy, but even without hearing the occasional "solo", it´s clear these guys have a rare mastery over their instruments. Because of the guitar skill, keyboards are unnecessary to Opeth, a refreshing abnormality among metal bands today. Also, the production is excellent, as should be expected from Unisound Studios and overlord Dan Swanö.

To me, these albums are essentially continuous pieces of music, so there aren´t any standout tracks or "hit singles". There are some notable things though. Morningrise is made up of five broad metallic tapestries, between which are inserted two shorter tracks, one a beautiful piano instrumental, and the other a little acoustic interlude. On Morningrise, they honed it down to five total tracks, none under ten minutes. The longest, "Black Rose Immortal" breaks the twenty minute mark, although like all Opeth songs, it´s just a collection of "scenes", so the track length is never really a factor. The closer, and perhaps the best song "To Bid You Farewell..." starts with seven minutes of acoustics and has clean vocals the whole way through. To finally express how good this band is, if I was forced to prune my CD collection down to one album, that album would be Morningrise, and I would probably try to sneak Orchid in along with it. I listen to both more than anything else I own, and after all this time, they´re still getting better with each listen.

Review by www.tpom.com

"Orchid" had been the debut of this Swedish band that should reach a status within the Metal-world in the following years that goes nearly unrivalled by any other band.

Already the first impression was unusual, only a pink orchid on a black background gracing the cover, no band-name, no album-title, nothing. And turning the whole package around, you see four silhouettes against a sunset, so that alone had already enough to separate this band from the rest of the scene.

But that was nothing against the music that would await us inside, because OPETH combine brilliant musicianship with sometimes great heaviness, strongly influenced by Death Metal, but loosening up the heavy passages with acoustic interludes and slower-paced, more mellow parts, yet still maintaining the flow within the composition.

The bandwidth reaches from Death Metal (especially the vocals) over classical and also folky influences to Progressive Metal and also "normal-metallic" riffs, everything woven together into a truly unique fabric of sound.

So who wants to explore demanding yet never complicated music, which still retains a really heavy sound, cannot pass by OPETH in any way!

Review by Alex

Music: Opening up with the 14:06 In Mist She Was Standing, the song swiftly establishes everything that Opeth was about. Long compositions that will have little coherence to those used to three to four minute concise songs. Musical ideas that are repeated for minutes at a time, then suddenly end as a new passage comes along. Heavy distortion (but not downtuned- the guitars are Maideny) and double bass swapping with clean guitar, slow and gentle bits. It really is a style that requires patience to understand, and a love for obtuse compositional styles. But I will clear up a misconception people have about Opeth. While extreme vocally from the start, at this time Opeth was not at all extreme musically. Except for some bursts of speed and soloing, Orchid is quite a mellow album. Even pacing and more than enough acoustic passages will stone cold dead any attempts to throw this on as 'excitement music' and if you put this album on with the 'impress me' attitude, it won't. Because it's not that kind of music. It's music music if that makes sense, created as if nobody was ever really meant to listen to it on a large scale. If you're wanting the more deathy and song oriented Opeth, skip down to My Arms Your Hearse and go from there. If you're looking for a unique journey of music built alternately around dual guitar harmonies knocking into sequences when the two guitars and the bass are all playing different parts, stop-start transitions at times and smooth here-to-theres at others, here you go. This is a band that was certainly unique then, and this album still holds up as out of the ordinary today. Lyrics and Vocals: Perhaps the most easily recognizable voice in all of extreme metal, Mikael Akerfeldt really does make some noise in his debut. I can't think of very many vocalists in 1994 (when the album was recorded) who used both clean and growled vocals freely. I'm definitely not going to go so far as to say he was the first (Dan Swano did beat him on that at least!) but all those years ago, Akerfeldt did set the standard for what the extreme progressive music vocalist should sound like. The clean vocals are not very developed at this point, and really are little more than 'whisper-singing' bits here and there. But the roar... Ah yes, the roar. A breathy, high scream with enough reverb to fill it out is the primary form of expression here and it is probably the most expressive, throatburning vocal of its type. If you've heard Edge of Sanity's Crimson, you've heard it. Katatonia's Brave Murder Day and Bloodbath's Breeding Death also featured the tortured throat of one Mikael Akerfeldt. On this album, which is not at all harsh or extreme musically, the vocals alone made the buzz about this band say 'black metal', 'extreme', 'brutal.' An interesting relationship here between vocals and music I'd say. Nothing as great as what it would be once the clean voice was developed on later albums, but again hindsight is 20/20 and who knows how this was taken in 1995? Lyrically I hate to say there isn't much special going on as far as overall quality, with lines here and there standing out. Passages such as 'Riding the fires of the northern gold/I've searched the eye/I laugh under the weeping moon' sound cool, but what do they mean? There could be hidden meaning, or it could just be that sounds cool factor. Typical prog obscurity here, ha ha!

Production: The album was produced by Opeth themselves, and engineered by one Dan Swano. The sound of the CD is completely unique, as I have not heard these astral guitar tones before or since. I get a sense that things were a bit rushed because even though the sounds are clear, there is a raw feeling to the guitars and the polish isn't there yet. Little things like unsteady drum beats and little vocal bits that should perhaps have been done again slip through once or twice, but to be fair the only reason I catch that is because I've listened to the thing five billion times and there'd be something wrong with me if I hadn't caught it, you know? I just wish that bass drum had a less clicky sound... Packaging: The edition I have is the 1997 US release by Century Media, which includes the famous blue CD that was fussed about when the album first came out. The cover is quite simple: Two orchids. Not even a logo for the European edition. The booklet itself is a standard 10 page affair, with each song having its own page for lyrics, and then a credits/thanks page. The backgrounds for the booklet are badly pixilated, and the back cover is merely the old Opeth logo in white over a white background (yes, that is correct) so this isn't the greatest piece of art to look at, but hey, it does its job. The back cover of the CD is the silhouette sunset shot that developed the Opeth mystique that lasted a few albums where their entire image was not at all having an image because nobody knew what they looked like! Another fun thing to do is look at the bands that are thanked here. Katatonia, Emperor, At the Gates, Asphyx, Edge of Sanity, Dissection, Therion, Ethnocide (who?). Summary/Notes: Orchid's historical significance can not be understated. In addition to the actual material on offer, just the meeting of Mikael Akerfeldt and Dan Swano during the recording of this album should cause some appreciation. I'm curious to how this album was received in 1995 as I didn't start hearing about Opeth until right around the time Century Media put the first two albums out in the US. The fact is this album is a groundbreaking milestone in heavy metal for the progressive elements that are thrown into the more metallic music and the extreme vocals. Trapped in between trends on its release, Opeth was weighed down by the black metal tag for years after this, simply because of what the hot trend was at the time.

Review by Jim Raggi

Is this album late or...? Recorded in March 1994, I guess that says a lot - Candlelight know how to delay their releases. Almost worse than Emperor isn't this? But on the other hand Candlelight know what bands to sign, because this is actually the masterpiece the sticker on the jewelbox says it is.

It falls into the nowadays quite wide Death Metal category; more specifically the melodic/atmospheric/you-name-it variety. There are obvious shades of Katatonia and Dissection in here - the main mind (I think) behind this, guitarist/vocalist Mikael Aekerfeldt, was actually permanent stand-in live guitarist in the former band - without being even close to Black Metal, although some would probably mark the vocals as such. When they are not clean, that is.

The playing is very proficient - some of the acoustic guitar pieces (yes of course there are such) and piano interludes makes you wonder where these guys come from. Not the (musical) gutter anyway.

Well, what more is there to say other than the album is very long and so are the individual songs, although it's fits so nicely together that you hardly notice where one track ends and the next starts. Just because I have to complain about something I will point at the lyrics who are somewhat, well, overblown.