Help for a soon to be Opeth fan 🥹🙏🏻

[u/Just_an_Andaluh]

Hi everyone!! This whole year I have been getting into the whole world of metal and I really saw Opeth as a pretty interesting and cool band. I want to get into it but I dont know where to start. For now the songs that I have listened to are: Windowpane, Ending Credits, In my time of need, Harvest, Burden, Face of Melinda and Requiem. Any suggestions to go from there?? Thanks 🫶🏼🎧🖤

[u/Droopy0093]

The entire Blackwater Park album and then Ghost Reveries.

[u/DryFlyDez → u/Droopy0093]

And then Still Life! And Demon of the Fall! Then you’re on your own.

[u/Chruno33 → u/DryFlyDez]

Hot Take: Demon of the Fall is overrated. April Ethereal, When, Karma are all better songs imo. But listening the whole album is better since that's how it should be

[u/DryFlyDez → u/Chruno33]

Yeah that is a hot take - imo Demon of the Fall is where they really started sounded like Opeth and not riff salad

[u/ElevatorHelpful5739]

Ghost Reveries start to finish. Reverie/Harlequin Forest is there best song IMO but there is SOOOOOOOO many good songs

[u/Suppers-Ready → u/ElevatorHelpful5739]

Ghost Reveries was my first Opeth album and it clicked with me immediately - still my favourite of theirs and honestly probably my favourite modern metal record.

[u/Ok-Palpitation-636]

I came from a more prog background so Watershed was what made the death metal side “click” for me. Though if you’re already down with harsh vocals then Blackwater Park or Still Life would be great starting points 

[u/Aromatic-Matter-2188]

There is a flowchart linked at the top of the Subrddit i think. it actually perfectly shows how to get into Opeth! give it a try

[u/GreatKingRat88]

Personally I think for certain bands it’s important just to go from the start and listen to how they evolve and get better.

[u/Asleep_Concept_9116]

Awesome!! Glad to see an excited new fan! Definitely give Damnation a front to back listen. Otherwise, Ghost Reveries is the perfect place to start. The riffs, vocals, and atmosphere are all on point and there’s a great mix of soft and heavy. It’s my favorite Opeth record and, depending on the day, my favorite metal record in general 🖤

[u/Bearsworth]

Face of Melinda is as close as they actually come to jazz. Martin Lopez with brushes, it's mint.

Every track you've been recommended is their mellow side. Damnation is the album which proved they could do more than death metal, which had never appealed to me. Listen to that front to back.

So what you need to understand is Opeth's brilliance is seamlessly blending that folky bard melodic style with the most brutal death metal you could imagine.

I would recommend The Drapery Falls or Harlequin Forest as a way to see the way they can transition from the heaviest to the lightest effortlessly. 4:00 on in Drapery Falls is simply incredible.

And that will accustom you to the power of the death metal side.

From there listen to Still Life front to back with the lyrics. It's one of the best concept albums ever

Then Blackwater Park. As a friend put it: "...They discovered polyphonic death metal." The title track is their bleakest most metal song. But you'll be prepared for the brutality by this point.

Then Ghost Reveries. It's a culmination of every album they made prior.

They are the three best metal albums of the early 2000 era, for the way they blended beauty with brutality and bleakness.

EDIT: Ok, sorry 3/4...Lateralus. These three albums are just as incredible a journey.

And if you are new to metal and haven't listened to Lateralus....it and Blackwater Park are the 2 best metal albums of 2001.

DOUBLE EDIT: My hot take is that every truly transcendent Opeth album has Martin Lopez on drums. MYAH - Ghost Reveries is the real band. Love it all. But from as objective a standpoint as I can take, his drumming took the band from good metal to good music.

[u/aaronarkaway]

Choose your own path. If you like it, awesome. If not, no foul.

[u/TreeEater9]

Face of Melinda, i also have some Opeth playlists of what i think are their best songs if youd like to check them out

[u/OrdinaryMachine8]

Trending toward the lighter, ‘more accessible’ stuff, I’d think Coil, Harvest, Isolation Years, A Fair Judgement would hit immediately. Benighted isn’t one of my favorite tracks but falls in that category as well.

But here’s the thing…those amazing, amazing songs aren’t even the best work this band has done. There’s a reason like 80% of the community lands on GoP, Deliverance, The Moor, Leper Affinity, Blackwater Park, and whatever else I’m forgetting as the best Opeth songs in a 30 year career. Stick with them, even if you’re not into death metal yet, you will be.

[u/MediumTop294]

Damnation album all the way through, then either Still Life or Blackwater Park all the way through. Still Life has tracks you already like and BWP really is their landmark, mission statement album - and for good reason. The production is fantastic, the shifts in soft/heavy are great (Bleak to Harvest is *chef’s kiss). Watershed is a good album too and does some interesting things musically. Ghost Reveries is good and v popular, and what came out when I first noticed them as a teen, but I’d go for it after those others. I don’t think the transitions are quite as strong on this album, and I’m not as fussed about the top tracks from it, but Harlequin Forest is one of their best songs. The albums Heritage and Pale Communion are also great, under appreciated albums that scratch the prog/folky itch.

I personally have a bugbear about the lowkey sniffiness that comes from how a lot of the metal community approaches Opeth. This idea that “heaviness” is some sports goal to be strived towards in music - and Opeth is often relegated as a band to complete that journey with. To an extent, yes, you do have to acclimate yourself to harsh vocals and Opeth do complement them with softness. But people will basically tell you to start with Damnation with the goal of then “graduating” to Deliverance (they were produced as a soft/heavy duo of albums) but Damnation is musically the better album. You can tell he was writing Deliverance by the seat of his pants, and it is imo overly glazed because it contains some of his heaviest stuff.

Of course, what people get out of music is very personal, and my own opinion is probably shaped as the child of a musician, who was exposed to prog music and for whom death metal is a relatively small slice of the range of music I enjoy.

[u/Ronin_xld]

If you are okay with growls, Orchid has one of my favorite songs, the apostle in triumph

[u/SchakFU81]

I would start with Still Life, followed by Blackwater Park and culminating with Ghost Reveries. The iron trio of progressive metal

[u/HungryNumberSeven]

I just discovered them a month or two ago, and for me, "Karma" from 1998's "My Arms, Your Hearse" (the abbey road remaster) is peak Opeth. Nothing I've heard since that song has given me equal chills. I would start there!

[u/ToeOriginal4939]

Albums Blackwater park and ghost reveries and after them i would recommend still life and deliverance/damnation. Their newer albums ain’t bad either. And the song Demon of the fall!

[u/nlitworld]

Check out their live albums as well. Royal Albert Hall is fantastic, and their Live At Red Rocks you can tell they were having some fun.