Pale Communion streaming at Pitchfork.

http://pitchfork.com/advance/519-pale-communion/

I listened to it and liked it a lot. I will be buying this when it comes out next week.

What does it compare to? Is it more Watershed or does it favor Heritage?

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What does it compare to? Is it more Watershed or does it favor Heritage?

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I am not real familiar with their back catalog, but I have read it described as a mix of Heritage and Blackwater Park. I would take that comparison with a huge grain of salt...

That being said, as someone who discovered their back catalog after Heritage, I really like it. I am just starting to expand my metal tastes into prog after listening to death, black, blackened death, melodic death and tech death genres.

This is nothing like blackwater park.. the overall feel and structures are just like heritage.. all over the place/very progressive/lots of exploring, jazzy tones and solos, lots of keys/mellotron.. no discernible verses and choruses.

I really do miss the 'old' opeth... pre heritage. While their albums all have their own identity, they are still cohesively opeth in overall sound and direction. The new one and heritage are really like a completely different band. It's good and I dig it, but I wonder if I'll ever get a classic opeth record.
They don't have to do metal to please me.. atonement, hex omega, hessian peel, burden, isolation, fair judgement.. this type of style. Heavy at times, but great clean/chill sections.. clean vocals with some sort of memorable structure.

Or probably my favorite opeth song, harlequin forest.. rock/metal with mostly clean vocals and sections of great harmony. I could use an entire album of that.

[This message has been edited by 62strat (edited 8/20/2014 12:36a).]

62,
Thanks for the breakdown. I have the same feeling towards other bands. I guess it all depends on when in a bands career you latch on to their music.

62,

Try Novembers Doom. They just released a new album called Bled White. It's very good and has a lot of the elements you are looking for. They are from Chicago.

This is a quote from a review of Bled White that is on the site No Clean Singing (an excellent extreme metal blog)

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They’re also a band of many descriptors, hailed as a variety of things over the years — a death metal group, a doom metal band, a gothic-doom metal band — and often incredibly hard to pin down. Some even go so far as to call them America’s answer to Opeth… which I’ve seen in more than one review.

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Entire review is here:
http://www.nocleansinging.com/2014/08/20/novembers-doom-bled-white/.

Infected,

Looking for some prog metal?
Ever listened to Between the Buried and Me?

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Infected,

Looking for some prog metal?
Ever listened to Between the Buried and Me?

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Thanks for the recommendation.

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This is nothing like blackwater park.. the overall feel and structures are just like heritage.. all over the place/very progressive/lots of exploring, jazzy tones and solos, lots of keys/mellotron.. no discernible verses and choruses.

I really do miss the 'old' opeth... pre heritage. While their albums all have their own identity, they are still cohesively opeth in overall sound and direction. The new one and heritage are really like a completely different band. It's good and I dig it, but I wonder if I'll ever get a classic opeth record.
They don't have to do metal to please me.. atonement, hex omega, hessian peel, burden, isolation, fair judgement.. this type of style. Heavy at times, but great clean/chill sections.. clean vocals with some sort of memorable structure.

Or probably my favorite opeth song, harlequin forest.. rock/metal with mostly clean vocals and sections of great harmony. I could use an entire album of that.

[This message has been edited by 62strat (edited 8/20/2014 12:36a).]

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My feelings exactly, down to the songs you mentioned.

^^ yep

They performed Fair Judgement at their last show in Dallas, along with several of their other songs from previous albums with clean vocals. Which is why I'm going to see them again in Dec.

BTBAM

Harlequin Forest is also my favorite Opeth song.

Pale Communication to me is an evolution of Heritage, encompassing the song structure of past albums and Mikael developing more aggressive, deep, clean vocals.

I haven't read much about the overall lyrical theme by critics but it is classic Mikael. Also definitely more of an album as far as the feel and progression of the songs.

Thumbs up! Will be listening to this for a while.

Awesome album. These guys are great musicians.

Favorite tracks:
Eternal Rains Will Come
Moon Above, Sun Below
River

This album is ruling my world right now.

Kudos to them for adding Joakim. Killer musician.

You got that right Big Cat, holy hell is this album bad ass or what??? I love how Mikael is stretching his voice on this one. Drums sound amazing, all the ghost notes on the snare (esp. on Eternal Rains) are sick.

Can't get enough of this one, and cannot WAIT for the show in December here in Houston. Got our tix already, gonna be amazing w/ In Flames in tow.

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This is nothing like blackwater park.. the overall feel and structures are just like heritage.. all over the place/very progressive/lots of exploring, jazzy tones and solos, lots of keys/mellotron.. no discernible verses and choruses.

I really do miss the 'old' opeth... pre heritage. While their albums all have their own identity, they are still cohesively opeth in overall sound and direction. The new one and heritage are really like a completely different band. It's good and I dig it, but I wonder if I'll ever get a classic opeth record.
They don't have to do metal to please me.. atonement, hex omega, hessian peel, burden, isolation, fair judgement.. this type of style. Heavy at times, but great clean/chill sections.. clean vocals with some sort of memorable structure.

Or probably my favorite opeth song, harlequin forest.. rock/metal with mostly clean vocals and sections of great harmony. I could use an entire album of that.

[This message has been edited by 62strat (edited 8/20/2014 12:36a).]

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Bought it on a whim today and agree with this, though I don't think you emphasized "all over the place" enough. Even individual songs aren't cohesive. One will start out slow and mournful, then have a weird, ten seconds jazz transition that comes out of nowhere, and then finish much faster.

I really like damnation, so I don't have it in for slow opeth, but the smorgasbord approach of this album feels disjointed and just not that good.