Mikael might be in need of talking – 80%
headcrusher444, May 6th, 2020
We all know Opeth, the kings of melancholy and sadness in metal. Well, let’s just take away the “metal” in that sentence, at least for this record. Here, they play some amazing depressive rock with progressive touches, but the songs aren’t that complex.
The lyrics are, for the most part, pretty negative and sad, but there are some songs, like “Death Whispered A Lullaby” which feature fairly positive vibes. Speaking of the lyrics, them are pretty cool, not so cliché neither original. Just lyrics that you can relate to without feeling a guy with self-diagnosed depression, and that’s nice.
Besides of the lyrics, you can sense a huge dark atmosphere since the very beginning of “Windowpane”, which has awesome soloing that is actually memorable, something that nowadays is hard as fuck to find. But the atmosphere doesn’t end with the final notes of “Windowpane”, it goes even further on “In My Time of Need”, one of the most depressing songs I’ve ever heard on my entire life, along with “Weakness”, the final track of this album. There’s a bit of light in some songs on the album, like the aforementioned “Death Whispered a Lullaby” or “Closure”, but then it continues the “feeling down” mood until the end of the album. It’s like a rollercoaster of emotions.
But the genius of Akerfeldt isn’t only about writing sad songs, he knows very well how to make you feel something without being a great singer. I don’t wanna sound like a fanboy or maybe a groupie, but his voice sounds beautiful and I can’t say that about a lot of singers. Also, the vast majority of the vocal melodies on this album are catchy.
As I said, the album isn’t that progressive, and features some pretty simple songs, but a song doesn’t need to be complex to make you feel something, so I don’t really see a problem here. Listen to the keyboards (or synths, I don’t really know what is that instrument) on “Weakness”, along with Mikael’s soft voice singing about how someone broke his heart, and tell me you didn’t feel anything. If you do that, you’re lying.
“Closure” might be the weirdest song in here, with its kinda danceable rhythms, and ending abruptly, without any advice. Some live versions of this song last about three minutes more than the album version, so I don’t know why they left that crappy ending, Still a great song tho.
“Ending Credits”. What the fuck man, it isn’t even the last track.
About the mix, I think it’s pretty good, the bass cannot be heard sometimes but when It’s heard sounds as warm as the guitars, and that’s beautiful; plus the drums sound incredibly natural. Every instrument can be heard, so I think they made a pretty good job with the mixing.
To sum it up, “Damnation” is one of Opeth’s bests, this album irradiates the dark atmosphere of their first albums with almost no distortion, a quite unbelievable achievement that only a band like Opeth could achieve.
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