Fact is, these Swedes - with the opening cut, "In Mist She Was Standing," exceeding the 14-minute mark - laid their cards on the table at the beginning of the hand and still took the pot, so ambitious and convincing is the band's artistic vision. Opeth's debut, Orchid, was quite an audacious release, a far-beyond-epic prog/death monstrosity exuding equal parts beauty and brutality - an album so brilliant, so navel-gazingly pretentious that, in retrospect, Opeth's future greatness was a foregone conclusion. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. Still, one has to admire Opeth's unwavering adherence to the album's astoundingly depressive tone, Orchid being a near-brilliant ode to misery that would kick the door down for Akerfeldt and his cohorts to claim sole ownership of a well-conceived and, at the time, startlingly unique sound. Mastermind Mikael Akerfeldt's guttural growls puncture the nearly interminable arrangements with the kind of brutality that stops die-hard death and black metal fans from giving up on the lengthy arrangements completely, although with five exorbitant cuts clocking in at ten-plus minutes (three of them over 13 minutes), some fat-trimming would have kept things even remotely manageable. And while the record finds the group searching for the razor-sharp focus and prominent emotional hook put forth on the later, classic releases My Arms, Your Hearse, Still Life, and Blackwater Park, Orchid is still an exhilarating listen, with the band meshing double-time death tempos with bleak, frostbitten riffs and moodily expansive, jazz-influenced, melodic instrumental passages sporting an abundance of delicate acoustic guitars and pianos.
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“Nomad” recalls Pink Floyd’s heavy soundtrack to the 1969 film More.Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs. Check out Mark Baker’s versatile guitar work here he seamlessly segues from towering Orange amplifier growls and hairy leads to more progressive parts that take cues from early Deep Purple.
But anyone still craving Orchid's bellbottomed attack on the Sabbath sound will find it in the seven-minute and 25-second epic “Silent One,” which grooves forebodingly with shadowy lyrics and knowing nods to 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. “Marching Dogs of War” follows, with fuzz-coated guitar riffs more informed by Pentagram’s Vincent McAllister than Tony Iommi. Right from the opening title track, singer Theo Mindell’s voice takes on a higher register as he sings and howls complex melodies previously uncharted.
The Mouths of Madness finds the San Francisco quartet coming more into its own sonance and style while retaining the classic early-'70s hard-rock trappings synonymous with Ozzy and company. With Orchid’s second studio album, the Bay Area doom-metal group dials down the Black Sabbath worship that dominated its preceding recordings.