Music : Morningrise

Rating: - Doesn't do it for me
As someone who has been into Opeth for some years now, I still cannot see the major appeal this album holds. It's an improvement over Orchid in terms of songwriting at least. There are still some very clumsy transitions, and even plenty of parts where they just stop, pause, and then play something completely different, but the songs as a whole feel like they have a kind of a shape, a beginning, middle, and end. To Bid You Farewell actually flows quite nicely and becomes quite hypnotic. The exception, however, is Black Rose Immortal. Opeth have never written anything as long as BRI before or since, though it's obvious why. The song is barely coherent; after about ten minutes they clearly start running out of ideas on how to make the song last longer, it keeps sounding like it's ended, only for another section to come in out of nowhere. The outro is nice but even that just starts after a pause following a completely different section. None of it flows logically at all. It's as if they tried desperately to write a 20 minute song just for the sake of it.

The overall style of the first two Opeth albums is quite different to the rest of their discography. Mikael Akerfeldt said that after Morningrise, he found that the twin-guitar thing that they were doing was being done to death by loads of other bands, and that everything that could be done with it had been done. They developed a different style for their next album, and I can imagine it was quite a shock when My Arms Your Hearse came out. In my opinion their style from then on is much more interesting on Orchid and Morningrise, which almost entirely consists of two guitars playing counterpoint melodies. Although many of the riffs are good, there's little variation in style besides switching from metal to clean passages and back again, which is nothing new these days. The more complex harmonies and arrangements that drew me to Opeth in the first place are not present on this album.

I don't recommend this to newcomers. Apart from the fact that I don't think it's very good, it's not representative of Opeth's style for the most part of their career. Pick up something more recent; I recommend Blackwater Park, Still Life, or Deliverance.

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Rating: - Masterpiece
Best Opeth album in my opinion. Definitely not an easy listening like Blackwater Park (or Damnation of course) so ask someone else first before you buy it because not all people like it. Track by track...

Advent is great, almost perfect. 4 and a half stars

Night and the silent water. 3 and a half stars

Nectar. 3 stars

Black Rose Immortal is one of my all time favorite songs, a 20 minute epic 'journey' , best opeth song in my opinion and 5 stars of course, totally worthing them

To bid you farewell is Morningrise' s second masterpiece track, definitely Opeth's best 'mellow' song, also one of my all time favorite songs. 5 stars

Eternal soul torture is a bonus track added later to the album and I still wonder why. I won't rate this one. It's a recorded very early rehearsal of the band with the worst audio quality ever.

Overall, 5 stars.

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Rating: - Morningrise
In my opinion, this is one of Opeth's best albums (tying with "Still Life" maybe.) There are only 5 songs on the album, all stretching to at least 10 minutes, (or in the case of the incomparable epic "Black Rose Immortal", 20 mins) Epic is definitely a word I would use to describe this album. A lot of bands (particularly black metal bands) tend to make their songs ridiculously long just for the sake of it, just to prove they aren't commercial or "sellouts". Not Opeth. Every song is just perfect. They are the length they need to be, incorporating countless different aspects of countless different genres. Its hard to pick a highlight from an album that is musically perfect from beginning to end, but I would have to say "Advent" is one of their best songs ever and "Black Rose.." simply cannot be compared to any other song ever written. It combines heavier, darker riffs and menacing death vocals with passages of softer more melodic acoustic guitar and stunning clean vocals, incorporating some fantastic drumming and absolutely classic riffs along the way. Just try and think of another song that can hold its own for 20 minutes! Maybe this isn't their most accessible, but its a good way of getting an idea of what Opeth are about, as I would say this is the band at their absolute best. The only complaint I could have with this album is the production. I don't agree that it detracts from the music itself, but it does suffer slightly in comparison to later albums. Theres not much else to say about "Morningrise". Its simply a stunning musical epic, combining the very best of death metal and prog rock with an edge of beautiful acoustic melody. If you like any of Opeth's music you can't fail to love this. I promise.

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Rating: - Promised a masterpiece....
My three favorite bands in the whole world are opeth, pantera and led zeppeiln. I brought this album purely on the basis of the stunning online reviews here. These reviewers are lying to you - this album is terrible and mostly unlistenable. Its not that the songs are bad - this is opeth on top form but the production is shocking. The drums are so weak, the guitars sound dreadful, the bass is way too loud - at times all you can hear is the twanging bass and the heavy vocals lack the deep roar of later albums such as still life or blackwater park. But the worst thing about the album is the terrible wirey acoustic sound. The trebly tones sound so synthetic compared with the soft, warm folky tone on later albums. This is the albums worst flaw. It hurts to listen to this album. It is a painful assult on the ears. Aside from that the clean vocals are excellent, up to the usual standard and some of the riffs are good but the production makes opeth sound just like any other death/black metal band. And they are not. Opeth, in my opinion, have the most staggeringly inventive/original sound since Eric Clapton decided to turn his guitars up. If they re-recorded this album with the ghost reveries style production, or even that from the blackwater park days it would be fantastic. Now im not slating opeth for this because at the time funds were tight and they could not afford a good level of production, all i am saying is that people should be aware of this fact before they buy the album. It is NOT the beautiful masterpiece that it is reviewed to be.Better still dont buy the album - get any of the releases that come after this(especially Blackwater park/Ghost Reveries but if you are reading this you probably already have them) as they are amongst the best albums ever recorded.

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Rating: - Soundtrack to our world
How this album hasn't won a stack of awards, I'll never know. It might be stereotyped into the death or black metal void, but that would be unfair, as there is enough musical diversity here to satisfy anybody into rock, metal, classical music, prog, folk, or really anybody who has an open mind about top quality music. It has been said that if Beethoven was alive today then Metallica's Justice for all album would be his rock contribution. Well I would add this album to that statement.

Advent starts things off in epic fashion, and is followed by surely one of the greatest pieces of music ever in Night and the Silent Waters - complete with epic fluency in the medieval guitar duals and folk interlude before the slow drum climax at the end. The other 3 tracks are all stunning - particulalry the twenty minute Black Rose Immortal.

All I can say is buy, buy, buy, and if you dont like this then you either havn't give it enough of a listen, or there's something wrong with you!