Tuesday 7 November 2017

Opeth - Pale Communion (2014)


The 11th album from this Swedish band.

Opeth was a quintet on this album with a lineup of guitars, mellotron, bass, keyboards, drums and vocals.
Steven Wilsen helped out on backing vocals and mixing. Dave Stewart did the string arrangements.

Opeth and Mikael Åkerfeldt is someone I deeply respect and like. More than I like their music. A lot more than I like their music, in fact. You will find some reviews of their albums in this blog and in # 1 of this blog.

Pale Communion is not as one dimentional as the previous album Heritage which I found a bit on the dull side of the spectrum. There is still no death metal and growls on Pale Communion. That is a bygone era now, mourned by a lot of their fans. I am not one of their fans so I am not sure what to think.

The music here is progressive rock of some sort. I am not sure what kind of progressive rock. But Camel springs to mind and so does Cressida. Early symphonic prog ? Well, maybe.

Mikael's vocals is a bit strained at times and is hitting the limiter..... and beyond. It is not a pretty sight or nice sounds from my speakers. But they are mostly OK, his vocals.

The music is again good without really impressing me. I am afraid I am simply not getting why this band's music is so great. Great human beings, but not so great music.

3 points


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