Album Picks, 2000-2009

Here are what I might consider twenty of my favorite music albums from this past decade, with more of a lean towards metal than the average list. In alphabetical order (and limiting one album per artist to add a little more variety):

*****

808s & Heartbreak - Kanye West

Who says you can't make beautiful music using auto-tune and a drum machine? Kanye uses these devices not as a cop-out but as paintbrushes for the minimalist vocal, instrumental, and emotional ambiences that pervade 808s & Heartbreak. Taken out of context in the form of radio singles, the album has the appearance of just another one of those auto-pop collections. But as an album, once you let the eerie opening track "Say You Will" set the tone, all the subsequent hits take on much more complex characters.

Ágætis byrjun - Sigur Rós

Sigur WHOA. Ágætis byrjun is one of the few modern albums that gives me the same feeling that great classical music does, where you forget about everything else going on around you, while you sit frozen, letting the music osmose into your unworthy veins. An incredible tonal depth encapsulates beautiful melodies and drives the music right to you and right through you, leaving you transparent, hypnotized, and helpless.

Alive or Just Breathing - Killswitch Engage

Killswitch Engage is one of the flag-bearers of the latest wave in metal, and their classic Alive or Just Breathing uses a perfect combination of beauty and brutality to bring an almost unequaled level of hardcore without sacrificing any elegance. Percussive but intelligible guitar-work and a crystal clear production highlight an album that has no weak points, tons of characters, and is easy to follow, headbang to, and enjoy.

Arular - M.I.A.

If the new style of hip-hop prizes beat-making over lyrical content, then let M.I.A. be seated on the new style of hip-hop throne. Mixing '80s electro beats with international elements, Arular brings back raw energy to a genre that had been taming down since its heyday, largely eschewing lyrics with real meaning in the traditional sense in favor of word that just sound good. The result is grooves as addicting as "Paper Planes" (which is great but musically unlike her other songs).

Back to Black - Amy Winehouse

Back to Black brings us back to Motown with its bold neo-soul grooves. The album is just about as crazy as Amy Winehouse's personality, and her gritty yet soulful vocals add an indescribable dimension of personality. The radio hit "Rehab" opens the album, and when taken out of the 2000s Top 40 context and placed into the Motown revival one is much more enjoyable. An album with this much flair is rarely seen and is a relief to hear during this current obsession with the depersonalizer that is auto-tune.

The Black Halo - Kamelot

Kamelot's masterful The Black Halo shows the maturation of their style that draws primarily on the notoriously superficial power metal genre and develops it into a complex, addictive collision of numerous influences. Instead of singing meaninglessly about victory and dragons, Kamelot continues a Faust-like tale from their previous Epica. With multi-layered, symphonic instrumentals, and even catchy melodies, The Black Halo is as triumphant as everything all those other power metal bands sing about.

Blackwater Park - Opeth

As I've previously written, Blackwater Park is my favorite album of the decade. A monumental work, perfect in writing and in execution, and a slap in the face for those who think metal is a one-dimensional genre. Drawing influence from so many styles and in turn influencing countless numbers of bands later on in the decade, this album is Opeth at its very best. See more of my thoughts on this masterpiece here.

The Blueprint - Jay-Z

Undeniably a landmark in hip-hop, The Blueprint is a fiery opus, filled with rhymes and beats rivaled only by Kanye West's equally influential The College Dropout. In a time where rap had gone soft, enter Jay-Z and Kanye West (who was one of Jay-Z's producers before pursuing his own solo career), who mix sample-heavy beats filled with so much hip and so much hop that you wonder where all the hip-hop-ness had gone and has gone since then.

Deadringer - RJD2

Hip-hop DJ RJD2, like the influential DJ Shadow, has a gift for mixing unrelated samples to create really exciting beats and grooves. His best album is his debut, Deadringer, which so brilliantly fuses constantly evolving electronic beats with flowing hip-hop and R&B vocals, while layering the music with audio samples with a head-scratching amount of smoothness and clarity. The album is strong from beginning to end, from its dance hits to its soulful pieces.

Discovery - Daft Punk

Discovery has all of the pluses without the minuses - the driving melodies of house music without the redundancy, and the eclecticism of an Aphex Twin album without the indigestion. The album's pop-driven sound is supported with funky beats that blow all those plain old house beats out of the water with its relentless dynamic. Discovery never eases down its energy, and its sends you on an adventure, on cruise control on the Autobahn, weaving through traffic.

Funeral - Arcade Fire

Funeral is one of those albums that you find only once a generation - so musically diverse, yet from beginning to end imaginative and epic. Without ever feeling weird, losing focus, or being vainglorious, Arcade Fire pushes the limits of indie rock with its broad spectrum of instrumentations and emotions. Each of the memorable tracks flaunts its own personality, but like a jigsaw puzzle of a Picasso painting, they still feel unified in a spunky way.

Hopes and Fears - Keane

Hopes and Fears is an underrated gem often unfairly labeled as a Coldplay imitation. Instead it's a collection of tunes better than anything Coldplay's ever made, united by a flowing piano rock style, yet made interesting by Tom Chaplin's vocals, which through a radiant falsetto convey emotions all over the spectrum - from Hope to Fear. All of the songs are catchy and memorable - perfect for the radio or a sing-along. But far more importantly, they are melodious, purifying, and lovely.

Illinois - Sufjan Stevens

While I'm not in general a fan of the whole singer-songwriter deal (ahem Bob Dylan), I cannot deny that Illinois is one of the most brilliant albums of our time. The album is composed of 22 unique tracks that effectively accompany their uniquely descriptive titles. The music ranges from chilling to strange, but is always elegant and straightforward, smartly avoiding corruption and the addition of distraction through overproduction.

Is This It - The Strokes

A guilty pleasure - straight up enjoyment without any gimmicks. Is This It's strength is the consistent quality of its gritty yet charming songs, replete with driving rhythms and chic melodies. Using a sound quality that is somehow both scratchy and clean at the same time, The Strokes revive '70s and garage sounds while never drifting away from their poppy indie rock identity. It's hard to believe that this is the band's debut album, because it might as well have been their Greatest Hits record.

The Marshall Mathers LP - Eminem

A rapper unlike any other, Eminem's sarcastic, humorous content and dynamic delivery make his music without compare from a pure entertainment standpoint. His greatest album, The Marshall Mathers LP, is personal and self-conscious, repeatedly making references to how listeners mistakenly take his messages seriously. Featuring relatively simple but catchy loops, the focus is clearly on the lyrics, which are at times hilarious, at times disturbing, and at times both.

Mezmerize - System of a Down

While Toxicity is the more "interesting" album, I'm more of a fan of Mezmerize, in which System of a Down create a significantly more melodic album while retaining their trademark sound. The band is known primarily for their quirky, percussive tunes, and understandably so - but their style is perfect for the melodies here because of the musical and lyrical humor contained throughout. Like listening to your friends talk after a dose of helium from a balloon, Mezmerize is tons of fun in a weird way.

Probot - Probot

Ex-Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl ventures on this ambitious project in heavy metal. Every track is sung by a different metal vocal legend, with Grohl single-handedly creating instrumentations in the style of the singer's band. The result is impressive and more accessible than a lot of the original work - it's clear that the combination of Grohl's knowledge of these bands and his ability to write mainstream music is at work here in this diverse and exciting album.

Sea Change - Beck

Listening to Sea Change, I wonder: what kind of breakup can lead a man to create this work of art - this sea of poetic angst trapped in a jewel case? For 52 minutes, Beck spills his soul, cleansing himself of his anguish, referring to his recent breakup in just about every track in the album. Painfully beautiful melodies swim on a flowing river of electric and acoustic backdrops, hitting the crests and the troughs of the waves at the right moments, and never becoming boring or unoriginal.

Wages of Sin - Arch Enemy

While as of late Arch Enemy's music hasn't had the percussiveness and musical complexity that's so characteristic of the pinnacle of today's heavy metal, they still know how to rock it out, and when it comes to pure guitar riff-making, Arch Enemy still reigns supreme. The queen of badass Angela Gossow's unique and versatile vocals sets the band apart from other acts of the same genre, and Wages of Sin showcases Michael Amott's most melodic and memorable riffs since Heartwork with his previous group, Carcass.

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - The Flaming Lips

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is as psychedelic as its title suggests, yet beyond these captivating instrumental and electronic textures, The Flaming Lips manage to add melodies that are enchanting and chillingly beautiful. The music and lyrics are about as pensive, meditative, and provocative as they are complex and captivating. It's a shame that in this new millennium, with its plethora of indie and alternative rock, people hardly even attempt to make progressive music like this anymore.

*****

The Next 20

• Boys and Girls in America - The Hold Steady
• The College Dropout - Kanye West
• Felt Mountain - Goldfrapp
• Follow the Reaper - Children of Bodom
• Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
• FutureSex/LoveSounds - Justin Timberlake
• Ghost Reveries - Opeth
• Kala - M.I.A.
• Kish Kash - Basement Jaxx
• Leviathan - Mastodon
• The Moon & Antarctica - Modest Mouse
• Neon Bible - Arcade Fire
• Oceanic - Isis
• Oracular Spectacular - MGMT
• Permission to Land - The Darkness
• Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters
• Since I Left You - The Avalanches
• Toxicity - System of a Down
• Veni Vidi Vicious - The Hives
• Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys

UFC on Versus 1 Commentary

Some quick thoughts on today's UFC event, which for the first time was on the Versus channel for free, and had the best card for a free event that I've seen. I was hoping for some quick knockouts in the first three main card matches so that we could perhaps catch some good undercard matchups in Guida/Gugerty, Howard/Roberts, and Schaub/Gormley. Unfortunately, they only had time to show the Howard/Roberts fight. So here are my comments on the televised matches, in the order they were aired.

Middleweight bout - Alessio Sakara def. James Irvin via TKO (punch), Round 1, 3:01

An excellent matchup on paper between two struggling knockout artists. Most of us were expecting fireworks, but instead the fight ended anticlimactically when Irvin was unable to continue after receiving a punch to the eye. Irvin seemed hesitant the whole fight, and it seems to me that his tremendous weight cut affected his performance and his will to continue. Irvin has fought mainly at heavyweight and light heavyweight, and he looked like a mummy at the weigh-ins cutting down to 185. He should definitely move back up to 205 for his next fight, whether or not it's with the UFC.

Heavyweight bout - Cheick Kongo def. Paul Buentello via submission (strikes), Round 3, 1:16

Another bout that on paper spelled knockout. Like just about everybody, I was hoping the fighters would keep the fight on the feet. Unfortunately for the viewers, Kongo played it smart by exploiting Buentello's weak ground game, grinding out a 2 1/2 round victory on the ground and in the clinch. Kongo will continue to get main card fights, but until he improves his incredibly poor wrestling and bottom game, he has nothing on any of the heavyweight contenders.

Heavyweight bout - Junior dos Santos def. Gabriel Gonzaga via KO (punches), Round 1, 3:53

This was in my opinion the best fight on the televised card, and it had a lot of us in analysis mode before the fight. While Junior dos Santos has been on a tear, we haven't really seen his ground game, and his style is fairly one-dimensional. Gonzaga is the bigger more complete fighter, but is thought to not have exactly the best mental game. Gonzaga was on the right track here in going for leg kicks and takedowns instead of trying to box with his opponent, but dos Santos was able to escape the takedown in impressive fashion, and eventually countered a Gonzaga leg kick with a huge left hook that left Gonzaga seeing stars. This win solidifies dos Santos as an elite heavyweight, and his next fight will almost definitely have a title shot at stake and will be against either Cain Velasquez or the Mir/Carwin winner - whichever one is not facing Brock Lesnar next.

Welterweight bout - John Howard def. Daniel Roberts via KO (punch), Round 1, 2:01

Ughhh... John Howard has got to be one of the most over-hyped, over-rated fighters in the UFC, and I was really hoping he'd get handed by the undefeated Daniel Roberts. Well, actually Roberts was outplaying Howard for the whole fight before letting his guard down while on the ground and getting sent to the moon by a falling punch to the face, much like Machida vs. Thiago Silva. Roberts was impressive enough overall to keep in the UFC as a prospect, while Howard will likely get a long-awaited fight against Anthony Johnson, where he will likely and hopefully get pummeled.

Light Heavyweight bout - Jon Jones def. Brandon Vera via TKO (strikes), Round 1, 3:19

Rising star Jon Jones gets a great matchup with the enigmatic former rising star Brandon Vera, and what an impressive fight. Jones was dictating the fight from beginning to end, getting takedowns easily. He had a good game plan and stuck to it, bringing Vera to the ground and pounding him out, eventually injuring Vera with a huge elbow strike. Unlike most of the ground and pound I've seen, which uses mostly up-to-down striking motions (straight punches, hammer fists), Jones was throwing hooks from guard and eventually injured Vera with a lateral elbow. I wonder why he was doing this - perhaps because his arms are unnaturally long? Anyway, this really impressive win sets up tons of exciting possibilities for Jones's next fight in what is a really deep light heavyweight division. It all depends on how deep into the pool they want to throw the phenom. A conservative choice would be someone like Thiago Silva, while other more difficult tests would be Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (assuming he beats Forrest Griffin), the loser of Machida/Rua or Jackson/Evans (assuming Rampage stays with the UFC). I don't see the UFC putting Jones up against the likes of Randy Couture (who might now be permanently in the senior circuit), Forrest Griffin (if he loses to Nog, you can pencil in his 4th loss in five fights to Jones), or Anderson Silva (too much on the line for both fighters). Anyway, since Jones hardly got hit, he might get his next fight relatively soon. Can't wait to hear who he's against next!

WEC 47 and Things to Look Forward to in MMA

It's been a while since my last MMA-related post, so it's about time for an update because 1) Saturday's WEC event had some really crazy results that now leaves an entire weight class wide open and 2) there are a lot of great fights to be excited for in the coming months.

The Versus broadcast of WEC 47 was overall great, and definitely the best show they've put on in a while. The only bad part was the utterly lackluster battle between Deividas Taurosevicius and LC Davis. Anyway, I'll focus on the final two bouts, which featured four of the top fighters in the world at 135 pounds.



First was the fight between the former bantamweight champ Miguel Torres and a top contender in Joseph Benavidez. Torres, who was just a few months widely considered the #4 pound-for-pound fighter in the world, was coming off a KO defeat to Brian Bowles, while Benavidez, after a decision loss to Dominick Cruz rebounded with a speedy TKO victory over Rani Yahya. This particular matchup was really interesting because of the physical and stylistic discrepancies between the two fighters - Torres is tall and had nearly a foot of a reach advantage, while Benavidez is almost as short as I am but packs a ton of power. Torres was the favorite coming into the match, as people expected him to be able to keep Benavidez at range while on the feet, while using his lanky frame to continue to be dangerous from the ground. However, it turns out that while Torres's jab was effective whenever he employed it, Benavidez was simply too explosive and was able to use feints and great timing to get in close where he has the advantage. From the beginning to the end it was clear that Benavidez was the better fighter. Benavidez was able to take Torres down several times, and although at times it seemed like Torres had a chance at submission, it was just too hard to pull something off on someone as small and strong as Benavidez. Eventually, Benavidez opened up a cut on Torres's forehead, presumably with an elbow strike, and the bleeding helped Benavidez sink in a guillotine choke for the victory. Torres is very skilled in the grappling game and so it was surprising that he left the opening for the guillotine choke, but he was probably panicking from all the blood and also had to worry about Benavidez's dangerous striking. Once the choke was in though, Benavidez was able to lock in to mount and then eventually roll to guard for extra leverage and force the tap. This was a really impressive fight for Benavidez, and would probably have made him the next challenger for the 135 lb belt had Bowles beaten Cruz. However, since Cruz won and Benavidez had recently gotten schooled by him, the choice of the next challenger could be iffy. For Miguel Torres, on the other hand, within seven months he has gone from seemingly invincible (having gone six years without a loss) to now being thrown back into the depths of the bantamweight division.

Wrapping up the night was the 135 lb championship fight between undefeated champion Brian Bowles, making his first title defense after his victory over Torres, and Dominick Cruz, whose only loss came to Urijah Faber at 145 lbs. I actually went with my heart over my brain in choosing Cruz to win the fight, even though Bowles was a 4-to-1 favorite. There were a lot of factors going Bowles's way - knockout power and submission skills, coupled with Cruz's history of going to decisions and the fact that this would be a five-round fight. However, there was just something about Bowles to me that didn't spell "champion." Anyway, the fight ended anticlimactically between the 2nd and 3rd rounds after Bowles effectively threw in the towel due to a broken hand. Even despite this, though, it was clear who was the better fighter even before Bowles landed his first punch. Cruz was able to use his speed and unorthodox movement to pepper Bowles with punches and kicks, while evading Bowles's responses. Interestingly, it seemed like Cruz didn't even make an effort to try to block his opponent's strikes. He instead opted to use distance control and head movement to avoid the punches, and this worked effectively. Cruz has talked about his game plan, and it is nothing complicated - use fundamental elements of boxing like footwork, head movement, and feints as effective MMA tools. For some reason, this level of technical boxing isn't really seen in MMA, especially in the lighter weight classes, where grapplers tend to dominate. After the long reign of Miguel Torres, the bantamweight division is now wide open. As for Cruz's next fight, I believe if he fights like he did against Bowles, he'll be a favorite against anyone they put up against him - but I don't have confidence in him being able to establish himself as a dominant champion. I feel like after his incredible speed, the biggest thing he's got going for him is his mystique, and like Shogun Rua was able to do to Lyoto Machida, I think Cruz's opponents will eventually begin to "figure him out." I'd say that Miguel Torres would have the easiest time defeating Cruz, but after two consecutive losses, we shouldn't expect him to receive a title shot for a while. We can instead expect Cruz's first title defense to be against the likes of Joseph Benavidez, Damacio Page, or Scott Jorgensen.

Looking ahead to the rest of the school year, there is a lot of exciting stuff going on in MMA. This month, there's a run of three UFC events in the span of 1 1/2 weeks (there's a DREAM event during that time as well). First is UFC LIVE: Vera vs. Jones, which will be shown for free on Versus on 3/21. The main event pits together two light heavyweights who are perhaps just a few fights away from top contender status and who are both coming off of losses in fights where they arguably won. Jon Jones is always exciting to watch and we can expect to see a few unorthodox strikes and throws. Brandon Vera is talented but has been underwhelming as of late - so we can hope to see a second wind from him. The other two fights on the main card are bound to be exciting. We've got the explosive striker Junior dos Santos against Gabriel Gonzaga in a heavyweight matchup, the winner of which will likely get Frank Mir, Shane Carwin, or Cain Velasquez next to determine who gets the next next shot at the heavyweight title. Last is another heavyweight bout between powerful strikers Cheick Kongo and Paul Buentello, which we can expect to be a high-octane kickboxing match.

UFC 111 on 3/27 is building up to be what on papers looks to be a loaded card. We shouldn't set our expectations too high though, as in the main event, welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre should demolish Dan Hardy - though if this goes anything like GSP's fights as of late, it will take the full 25 minutes. The other huge fight in the welterweight division is between the consensus #2 and #3 fighters in Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves. The winner of this fight has a good chance at the next title shot if Hardy pulls the upset, but seeing as GSP destroyed both these guys recently and will likely do the same to Hardy, we can all but count this possibility out. We can also set our expectations low for this fight, as although Alves will try to brawl and get a KO victory, Fitch will try to win by boring the crowd and his poor opponent to death. The most exciting matchup of the event is definitely the fight for the interim heavyweight championship between Frank Mir and Shane Carwin. Carwin obviously has huge knockout power and has a good wrestling base to avoid takedowns. Mir is one of the two most dangerous people on the ground in the heavyweight division, has bulked up, and has shown in his last fight that he can actually pack a punch. On one level, it's your classic striker vs. grappler matchup, Frank Mir's striking and conditioning is such an X-factor that it's hard to tell what to expect.

On 3/31, the UFC has its third event in a two-week span with UFC Fight Night: Florian vs. Gomi, which will lead in to the premiere of The Ultimate Fighter's 11th season. The main event will be a showdown between one of the consensus top lightweights in Florian, and the semi-struggling Gomi, who will look to regain his dominant status. If Gomi wins convincingly (and if BJ Penn successfully defends his title in UFC 112, as expected), we can expect him to be the next challenger to the lightweight title, as BJ Penn is basically running out of opponents. Gomi will have to pull off an upset though, as Florian comes in a reasonable favorite. Another intriguing matchup is between the 6'11" rising star Stefan Struve and recent TUF winner Roy Nelson. Struve's development has been rapid, while we already know what to expect from Nelson. Though this particular matchup (like any matchup with someone like Roy Nelson) could turn out unexciting, it will be good for gauging Struve's progress and Nelson's role in the UFC.

Then rounding up the rest of the school year is the 2nd season of Bellator, which looks to have an even wider audience following its successful run last year. The season will premiere on 4/8 and will be in a bracket tournament format, with new installments roughly every week. Then on 4/10 is the highly anticipated return of middleweight champion and #1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world Anderson Silva at UFC 112. This event marks Silva's first title defense in almost a year, while lightweight champion BJ Penn, also on the card, has during that time already successfully defended his belt twice. On 4/17 is Strikeforce: Nashville, which will have three title fights, one of which will definitely be exciting, and one of which will almost certainly be boring. Strikeforce has been having problems lately and they'll need a successful event if they want their promotion to last much longer. Things will be made even more difficult for them as the UFC will counter-program with their own event, UFC Fight Night 22. No matchups have been made official, but the UFC will definitely try to get some big names in (perhaps the MMA debut of boxer James Toney?), in an effort to incite the collapse of Strikeforce. On 4/24 is the highly-anticipated WEC 48 - WEC's first venture into the PPV market. The card is looking to be stacked with the incredible Jose Aldo defending his featherweight title against WEC poster boy Urijah Faber, along with a rematch of one of the best fights from last year between Ben Henderson and Donald Cerrone. The rest of the main card is lined up with some of the top fighters in the promotion. Finally, there's UFC 113, which will feature a rematch between light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida and Mauricio Rua. Their first fight ended with a highly disputed decision, and an immediate rematch was very much in demand. Also on the card are two top welterweight contenders Josh Koscheck and Paul Daley, as long as a fight between two Ultimate Fighter alumni Kimbo Slice and Matt Mitrione.

A Tribute to My Favorite Album of the Decade

Blackwater Park

Opeth (2001)

*****

*****

Looking at some lists of the "best music albums of the decade," I noticed some consensus top choices ("Kid A" and "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" to name a few). I won't deny that these albums are musically innovative, but honestly the only "top album" that really grabs me is Arcade Fire's "Funeral." In choosing my top album of the decade, I will break from the mold a bit and choose an album from an oft-neglected genre - heavy metal.

Opeth is typically classified as "progressive death metal," a term which already looks like a handful but doesn't even begin to describe the type of music that they make. Mikael Akerfeldt's songwriting transcends all of the guidelines and stereotypes of metal, and can be enjoyed by both heavy metal fans, who will see the music as novel, and non-metal fans, who will find the music surprisingly accessible.

The defining characteristic of the band's music is the ability to weave together all different types of expressions and styles so seamlessly. One moment, you may be hearing raging screams over percussive distortion guitar riffs. Then comes a solemn piece on the piano or acoustic guitar, and then a jazzy segment with clean vocals. Yet as eclectic as each piece of Opeth's music is, all of it feels so natural and makes so much sense, and this is what sets Blackwater Park apart from the decade's other musical innovations.

Blackwater Park, for Opeth, is a starting point for what would eventually be a decade of consistently great music characterized by their trademark sound and songwriting style, and perhaps more importantly, production of the highest quality. However, in my opinion Blackwater Park is still their magnum opus - as an album it is the most cohesive of all their works, and its influence on their music and on many other bands is undeniable.

As is the case with all of Opeth's albums, Blackwater Park is meant to be listened to all the way through as one "song." Accordingly, the album is not really divided into "songs" as much as "movements," in the style of long-form classical music. With an average track length of about 8 1/2 minutes, each song contains musical themes that carefully develop and evolve into or are shoved aside by new ones - though once in a while you may hear a brief reprise and think, "whoa, we heard this 7 minutes ago... how did we get all the way back here?!" with an expression of amazed surprise.

But the musical complexity of the album isn't the only thing that makes it so great. Over the course of 67 minutes, the band creates an immersive musical atmosphere that approaches the greatness of my all-time favorite album, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. There is not a single bad moment to be found in either work, and each one brings a new experience upon every re-listen.

Typically, I listen to music (a wide variety of genres, might I add) while doing something else, like using my computer, studying, or walking somewhere. But there are some albums that I find worthwhile to just sit down, relax, close my eyes, and absorb - and Blackwater Park is one of a select few.

At this point, I encourage you to do exactly this: pop in the album, get rid of distractions, and absorb and appreciate this masterpiece. (Well, at the very least pop in the album...) Below is an extremely detailed listening guide for the album, which may be useful to skim if you're deciding whether or not to invest your next hour listening to some Opeth, but is intended more as a supplementary read while or after listening to the album, to deepen your appreciation. Yes, the guide is incredibly lengthy, but it just only scratches the surface of all the substance in this masterpiece.

*****

Opeth's Blackwater Park

Jason's extremely detailed listening guide

Blackwater Park opens with the fading in of a barely audible, eerie and dissonant noise, before coming in with a bang (0:28). The beginning of "The Leper Affinity" contains the hardest, loudest, and fastest music of the entire album. The opening riffs are sure to please any metal fan, and for those not used to this type of music, rest assured that these brutal opening passages are actually leading to something beautiful. By the end of the album, you will not even notice how "metal" much of the album really is! Already the music is getting pretty technical. Did you notice the triplet-duplet polyrhythms between the guitars and vocals in the first riff (0:43) and the fact that the music changes from 3/4 to 6/8 meter at (0:56)? Hopefully you didn't before I pointed it out, because the subtlety that Opeth is able to incorporate into their musical complexity is impressive. The transition at (2:12) is great. From a melodic death metal tone that sets the tone of the track, we go into a segment with a more thrash-influenced style (think Metallica) that is perfect for headbanging. After some development, we get a recapitulation of the same riff at (3:14) with a more slurred articulation (again a subtle detail), which is the perfect setup for the slow, melodic segment at (4:05). The solo guitars here sound like they're really singing - crying even. (4:46) is the first part of the album that would make someone familiar with Opeth but not with the album go, "oh hey, this is an Opeth album." Acoustic guitars, clean singing - the balance and contrast this has with the heavier portions of the album is what makes the album shine. And here, the high production quality of the album, which is marked by an uncharacteristic amount of clarity for a metal album, is at its most obvious. The way that this somewhat jazzy/funky portion gradually builds back up to the original theme from (5:38) to (6:53) is masterful and has some great rhythms. The music eventually calms down into a pretty piano segment (8:52) that is just filled with longing. Thinking about this track as a whole, it follows a classical sonata form (A-B-A-coda), which is interesting in that A) it doesn't follow the verse-refrain format that is too popular in music today, and B) it develops a "B" section (the slow part) that is so different from the "A" section, yet each transition flows so naturally. This track alone is already a masterpiece, but we're only getting started, because the piano solo segues right into the second track.

"Bleak" is a beautiful track that stands out in an already great album, and its greatness need not be explained, though I will proceed anyway to note some details. The themes in the first three minutes of the song are based on the exotic-sounding Arabic and Hungarian scales, and right away the great consonance between the acoustic and electric guitars is amazing and is a testament to the album's production quality. The expressive quality of the growling vocals always intrigues me - it is completely devoid of the anger that runs rampant in death metal vocals, and Mikael Akerfeldt does an excellent job conveying the emotions found in the lyrics. The cadence at (2:39) is awesome - even though it's on an acoustic guitar, it's possible the most jarring moment in the album so far. At (3:08) is a super-technical lick that leads to the second main chunk of the song, which has an incredibly catchy clean vocal part. This is sung over a guitar riff whose notes could easily be the instrumental for a hard rock song, but here is played and produced with such a legato quality that for a rhythm guitar part, it is incredibly lyrical. The passages at (4:26) to (5:59) are pretty straight up - the bass part in particular is quite cool. For some reason Eric Clapton comes to mind. The band makes a smart decision at (5:16) to hold the pause for longer than a full four counts. We expect them to come back in, but they trick us and don't come in until a beat or two later. At (6:00) begins the development of a great multilayered atmosphere, though it is still easy for a listener to follow. Then, of course, at (7:21) comes back that cool part again from a while ago - though for some reason I feel like it has a more powerful quality to it this time around, especially once the vocals transition back into death metal growling. As the track is wrapping up, the drum part goes into double at (8:43), which is pretty sweet, before the track ends with what sounds kind of like an electric guitar dying.

"Harvest" is some nice easy listening after two long, complex tracks. It is done the entire way through with soft, clean vocals over an acoustic guitar backing. The two vocal parts sound pretty much perfect together, whether they are singing in octaves, in harmony, or in unison. Interestingly, the drummer sounds like he's using brushes here, which brings a nice contrast to the harder drumming found previously. Obviously it's a huge deviation from heavy metal standards. The music seems pretty straight up this time, but the key signatures are going all over the place! The song opens in E minor before going into C minor for the first main vocal part ("Stay with me awhile") and then into A minor for the next ("Into the orchard") before standing on B minor ("Wilted scenes for us"). The chord progressions don't really make any sense to me, but Opeth makes it work. At (3:13) is... wait for it... another key change! This time into D minor. The guitar solo here isn't too melodic, but is very emotional. Not much else to say... just relax and enjoy this one.

After a track that is simpler and closer to a regular song, we dive right back into all-out Opeth mode with "The Drapery Falls", whose opening lead guitar riff reminds me a little of King Crimson's epic track "In the Court of the Crimson King." The bass part under this riff is excellent too - it dances around the fretboard with a little bit of a groove to it and while the fits with the music around it, it also has a personality of its own. This intro is one of those moments where you can really "lose yourself to the music" as Eminem would put it, and it leads perfectly to the next section that starts at (1:46). This passage is noticeably bare compared to the musical multilayering of much of the album and is reminiscent of the "B" section of "The Leper Affinity," especially in the vocal effects and absence of a drum part. After some crazy acoustic guitar chords, in comes the drums and some passionate singing at (2:47). The first time around, this phrase dies back down into bareness, but the second time it segues into a long crescendo, eventually leading to an intense passage with the first death metal vocals (5:06) that we've heard in over ten minutes. This is some great songwriting here! If the album had a "plot curve," this could be the peak right here. At (5:35), the band puts aside melody and just grinds out some huge power chords, leading to an insane dissonant vamp at (5:50) in 5/16 time that after a while transcends even trying to make sense but somehow leads flawlessly right into the next section at (6:09). The rhythm becomes a little more clear now - it's 5/8 (or 10/16), with the beats grouped 3-3-2-2 (like the Mission Impossible theme), and a couple of measures of different lengths tossed in every now and then. Finally we go back to a straight 6/8 at (6:49), which is what we've been accustomed to for much of the album. Still, the intensity is not at all waning. The riff here is vamped for a while, but at (7:19) it goes into double time, but with the beats grouped 3-3-2-2-2 instead of a straight up 3-3-3-3 or 2-2-2-2-2-2. For some reason, this reminds me a little bit of Green Day. The big shocker comes at (7:47) when all of the instruments suddenly drop out. But don't let this brief acoustic guitar / vocal duet fool you, because it alternates rapidly with some really heavy stuff, complete with double bass drum pedaling action. Eventually, the original theme of the track makes its reprise at (8:41), which by now should be no surprise, as the band has largely been following an A-B-A sonata form for most of the tracks. As the double bass drum beats become more prominent, the music fades into nothingness, which is the ideal ending considering the track to follow.

"Dirge for November" is probably the track in the album that focuses most on using music to create a pure mood rather than a mood concealed within a melody. Unlike the other tracks, you can't really sing along to the tunes in this track, and if you tried to, you're missing the point. The beginning of the track is very obviously bare, and the tempo is very rubato, which is an art that is largely disappearing and often misinterpreted when actually performed. The suspension and resolution at (0:08) and the dissonance at (0:18) are simply astounding. This passage can be thought of as a kind of introduction to the rest of the track, starting at (0:45), which is more cohesive. The name of the game from this point on is "4," because that seems to be the number of times each riff is repeated. But it's clear here that Opeth is aiming for a slow, deliberate development of the mood - a constantly shifting atmosphere would be disorienting. The beginning of the instrumental passage is the closest we really come to a melody, and features the electric guitar playing with such a muted sound that it almost resembles the sound of a nylon-strung classical guitar. At (1:43) is the sudden entrance of the distorted guitars, which play a variation of the previous riff. By the time the vocals reenter at (3:27), the themes have become almost hypnotic. This trance-like death metal is sustained until (5:45), when the music dies down to a clean guitar riff that is not at all melodic but contains some beautiful chords and sweeping arpeggios. Out of all the great tracks on the album, this might be the least "memorable" for its lack of melody - but that doesn't diminish the track's greatness. Just kick back and absorb the music, the mood, the ambience.

After the fading out of the guitar in "Dirge for November" comes the fading in of a ominous repeated, dissonant, broken chord on the acoustic guitar in "The Funeral Portrait", which is followed by a thrashy section at (0:30) which makes you remember that, yes, this is an album that you can rock out to when the time is right. Not much commentary is needed here - most of the track is straight up and easy to enjoy. The short interlude at (3:53) seems to be kind of jazz fusion influenced, with the acoustic guitar and drums having a little back-and-forth conversation. The track then gradually becomes more atmospheric and less rhythmic, starting with (4:07), which still has hints of thrash with the tight rhythms on the bass drum, and eventually leading to (4:28), which has a foggy feel despite the near blues-iness of the guitar solo and the jazzy drum beats at (4:43). And of course, what long Opeth track would be complete without a recapitulation of the first theme (5:28)? The coda section starting at (6:33) is really interesting because its chord progressions seem to be heavily influenced by classical music theory. This is especially evident in the iv-iib-V7 chord progression at (6:37), which is hardly ever used in music nowadays. At (6:48)... three-part vocal harmony mixed in with counterpoint... Bach would be proud! The change into double time at (7:16) should by now not come as a surprise. We get a little bit of double lead guitar action as the track fades out to...

"Patterns in the Ivy", which at a mere 1:52 in duration is clearly meant as an interlude between two beastly tracks. Just relax and enjoy the beautiful contemporary harmonies of this acoustic guitar / piano duet.

Finally we arrive at the big ending - the title track of the album, "Blackwater Park", which might be the least technically complex track in the album - centering almost entirely on the D Hungarian scale - but it is still pure awesome. It starts with a march-like feel that at times (1:25 in particular) reminds me of the opening riffs of Metallica's classic "For Whom the Bell Tolls". The opening sections are definitely influenced by 80's and 90's metal (Pantera comes into mind), and even though a true metalhead will never get sick of the key of E, Opeth switches things up here by going into drop D tuning, which I tend to associate with lots of oomph and slower, steady beats. When the heavy guitars suddenly drop out in (2:41), we're left with a beautiful clean guitar riff that will be vamped over and over again while various other parts interact with it - very much in the progressive rock style - like the electric guitar part at (3:44) that has a vocal quality to it (though the vamped riff is replaced briefly by an acoustic guitar at this point). This is the last track of the album, and you can probably guess that this serene section is preparation for an epic ending. Indeed, the music fades back in at (5:10) and is even heavier than it was at the beginning of the track. The use of the kill switch at (6:37) and at various points later adds some rhythmic flavor and gives Opeth even more bonus points. The riff at (8:07) is a reprise of the clean guitar riff vamped in the previous section, and obviously has a completely different feel this time, played in octaves on a distorted guitar - so grand, orgasmic even. Once again, the riff is vamped, but this time there is more development going on, with the rhythms going into double time at (8:51). The passage starting at (9:14) marks a kind of final climax of the album before the brief, disorienting "pause" at (9:37) and denouement at (9:48). As the track and album wind down, layers of sustained electric guitar notes pile on top of each other starting at (10:56), much like the end of "Master of Puppets", until (11:19). Here you may be expecting the album to end with a grandiose, shredding away of the strings, which is understandable because a lot of bands like to rock out like this before they end their show. It will probably be surprising, then, to hear the album end with a single, staccato, power chord, followed by the gradual fading out of an acoustic guitar over the course of a minute. And so we are reminded of the famous ending lines of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" - "This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper."

*****

For the lyrics to Blackwater Park, click here.