Opeth
Ghost Reveries

Our beloved Opeth returns, two years after the beautiful, enlightened "Damnation" that brought out the more intimate side of the Scandinavian band's musical offering. Because of this, however, there were fears - perhaps justified - about what the future of Opeth would be: would they once again prove to be ingenious, eclectic, and sincere, or would we lose the fathers of prog-death forever? It seems strange, but both statements are correct. Why? Let's analyze this Ghost Reveries.

The beautiful cover introduces us to a different world, different because in this case, the feeling of desolation partially gives way to spectral, illusory, unreal coordinates. To make a literary comparison, we can invoke the unhealthy Gothic vision of Edgar Allan Poe. Listening to the opener, however, time seems to have stopped at the release of Still Life. Those deadly outbursts, the precise and powerful growl, the delicate arpeggios full of melancholy. Ghost Of Perdition is an Opeth song, undoubtedly.
Yet something is changing, and The Baying Of The Hounds confirms it. Maybe I'm just exaggerating small details, maybe I still don't understand what to expect, but in this song - perhaps for the first time in Opeth's career - Mikael uses his clean voice even when there are no acoustic inserts, creating a kind of well-achieved contrast between deviant gothic-death riffs and the sublime vocal performance of the singer.
Paradoxically, after only two songs, your skin already starts to quiver: you look around, search for glances that aren't there, hear footsteps among the gray shadows. You're already sad, but also scared: where are they, where are the ghosts?
It's Opeth who answers us, with the following Beneath The Mire, introduced by a riff that has little in common with death: gothic keyboards immerse the listener in an unexpected context, with the guitars hesitantly emerging gradually before Akerfeldt's explosive growl fades after a few seconds in favor of the clean voice. Another tempo change: a very light guitar comes along, together with simple keyboard chords. A brief interlude, a moment of peace before the terror: does the growl return? No, it was just a second. The ghost reappeared, only to hide again. It is electronic inserts that mark the end of the track. I don't know what purpose they have, but I fear it wasn't an excessively happy choice. But I could be wrong.

Atonement is instead anomalous: the oriental gait makes it mysterious, fascinating, while in this case, the electronics prove appropriate and offer truly unique sensations: Mikael's effected voice initiates a kind of spectral lullaby. Apparently soft, Atonement is rather a concentrate of madness, anguish, and calm. But is it really calm? Or is it just a truce waiting for the ghost's return? Nothing helps us understand, because the last minute is composed exclusively of a repetitive and reckless riff, reminiscent in certain ways of the intro of the beautiful Face Of Melinda.

But beware: it's time to get out of the four walls to search for the trees of Reverie - Harlequim Forest. It is perhaps the least flashy song on the album, because although interesting, it is the most "canonical" along with Ghost Of Perdition. After this melancholic eleven-minute journey, we're cradled by the ethereal atmospheres of Hours Of Wealth. But with Opeth, the surprise is always around the corner: a pause, brief enough, disrupts the song's balance: is that jazz I'm listening to? In reality, it's just an analgesic for The Grand Conjuration, whose violence alternates with a voice halfway between singing and whispering. No! Not now...! Is it him? Yes, the ghost is back... no, just an impression. Or was it really him? Hard to say: too many varieties of emotions, internal contrasts, sufferings.
Something is needed. That "something" is the last track of Ghost Reveries, the beautiful Isolation Years, featuring Mikael engaged only in clean vocals. Finally, the ghost is gone, at least for now.

What remains then? Fears, uncertainties, solitude remain. And the awareness of having a masterpiece in hand. The umpteenth of Opeth. A work undoubtedly different, complete, and fascinating (although inferior to Blackwater Park). We find the hardness of their beginnings, the sadness of Still Life and Blackwater Park, the anger of Deliverance and the deep malaise of Damnation. I'm not exaggerating: it is undoubtedly heterogeneous yet profoundly logical, it's a haunted cell after an hour of freedom, a spectral moon after a sunny day. We will remember this album for a long time.