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pale communion

Opeth
Pale Communion

Manos Spanos
Progress. A word that sprawls its meaning to the four corners of the horizon. A word that in modern music terminology is used to define the change of a band’s sound to another hype or level. A word that is synonymous to the nature of Opeth’s music. But the new leaves in the tree of opeth happen not to share the same roots. “Pale Communion” seems to have grown from seeds in the near field but not the same tree.. On their eleventh observation, Mikael Akerfeldt and Opeth, sound they’ve found a perfect balance within the music these five guys can reproduce better than anyone else. Rock in a progressive rock manner but quite more straight forward and a lot folkish- if I may use the term... The album busts in with a 70s lick made by Deep Purple and it progresses in the same attitude and vibe. Hammonds for the world but I could say it doesn’t even get close to the “monster” of Jon Lord soundwise. Camel-ish enough though!Eternal rains will come? Cusp of eternity, the first tune to come out earlier than the rest of the album, is a beautiful radio-friendly tune with some ah-ahs borrowed by Ritchie Blackmore’s Night first album. Moon above, sun below is the only track exciding the 10 minutes of duration. Many acoustic passages similar to Damnation days and a few outbursts with some quite heavy metal guitar solos here make this track surface more than the rest of the album. Actually the track builds up to its ending theme from 6.22 till the end with a familiar Opeth cresendo (A Fair Judgement/ Porcelain Heart type). Elysian Woes, sounds like a lost track of a Camel single b-side or an intermission track of a 70s Genesis album. Another nice acoustic but nothing extravagand. Goblin, is a beautiful 4 minute instrumental with great 70s prog rock themes. Probably my favourite on this album even though not original at all. River, starts off with some major 12stringed guitar melodies and as it moves on the music in it unveils into an upward tempo and into the most powerfull and metal-ish sound you’ll find in here with some double bass included as well (no growls though). Kind of in the ways of moon above sun below... Voice of treason is a known formula of song with a basic melody circulating throughout the whole song until the end and several melodies emerging every now and then to acompany it. Finally Faith in Others is a long outro melodic piece of music with all vocals procecced through phone-box effect with a quite melodic and touching imagery building. Probably the most Opeth sound-ing in terms of atmosphere here in Pale Communion... To sum it up, every Opeth release really can’t be bad in any term...the music is here, the production that fits the music is here, the emotions are here...nothing is missing but the element surprise and uniqueness. Opeth have all these years managed to surface their music because of certain elements that other bands couldn’t mix together- or let say couldn’t do it that perfectly as Opeth did. Unfortunately these elements seem to missing from Opeth’s latest observations and stabornly refusing to get at least some of those in the play... Thus I’d rate Pale Communion as the second album that Opeth search their new identity. I’m not sure how many albums will it take till they find themselves but we’ll be here waiting for their comeback.
04 min read

OPETH’s ‘Pale Communion’ Pushed Back To August

Manos Spanos
"Pale Communion", the highly anticipated eleventh studio album from Swedish progressive metallers OPETH, has had its release date pushed back to August 26 (via Roadrunner Records) from the previously announced June 17. "Many of you have heard the rumours already and we can now confirm that the release of 'Pale Communion' has indeed been pushed back to late August," commented OPETH guitarist/vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt. "Several circumstances prevented the band from delivering essential tools to Roadrunner in time which are needed to set up the album release properly and release schedule conflicts made us mutually decide on August instead of June." "Pale Communion", which was produced by Åkerfeldt and mixed by longtime collaborator and PORCUPINE TREE frontman/guitarist Steven Wilson, will be heralded by the lead single "Cusp Of Eternity" and available for pre-order starting Tuesday, June 3. Pre-orders for "Pale Communion" made via the iTunes Store will receive an instant download of "Cusp Of Eternity" as well as a second album track, to be released on July 15, with multiple configurations also available via both the Roadrunner Records webstore and O Merch. "Pale Communion" track listing: 01. Eternal Rains Will Come 02. Cusp Of Eternity 03. Moon Above, Sun Below 04. Elysian Woes 05. Goblin 06. River 07. Voice Of Treason 08. Faith In Others In a recent interview with Noisey, Åkerfeldt stated about "Pale Communion": "Normally when I start writing for a record, I'm a bit nervous. You don't know whether or not you're going to be able to come up with something that you like or come up with something at all, to be honest. I was inspired because pretty early on, I wrote a song on the new album — the last song on there, which I ended up being really happy with. So I had some type of guidelines which was more melody, I think." He continued: "[2011's] 'Heritage' was somewhat deliberately fucked up all over the place because I love fucked-up-all-over-the-place-type music, but I wanted to do something more melodic with this album, so there's stronger vocal melodies and more melodies overall for this album. I was pretty consistent with that frame of mind throughout the writing process, so at least I had a plan with this album, and I normally don't, to be honest." Mikael added in a separate interview with Metal Assault: "['Pale Communion' is] the next album, so I guess it's closer to ['Heritage'] than, say, the first album. But I'd like to think there's an upgraded sound, and by that I don't mean a modern sound. We were looking at some of the late '70s and early '80s production, and that's what we were going for sound-wise and it's one of the reasons why we ended up recording at Rockfield Studios in Wales, which is a legendary studio where many of our favorite bands recorded. So, musically, I guess you could say it's similar to 'Heritage', but I'd like to think it's more hard rock and metal sounding. We also have something new that we didn't have before in certain songs. I don't really know what it is, which I like. I like to either recognize our sound or to hear something completely new, and I think we have both on the new album." Asked if he thinks if it would be fair to say that people who liked "Heritage" will like this new album as much as, or even more than, the last OPETH CD, Mikael said: "Yeah, I hope so. I hope everybody will like it, of course. I think it's probably a bit easier to get into because it's a bit more melodic. There's definitely more attention to melodies and I wouldn't say it's an easy-listening album at all, but there's more melody than ever before, not just 'Heritage'. I'm hoping that people who liked 'Heritage' will like this o
04 min read