Opeth - Orchid (1995)
It certainly is
bizarre to go back through Opeth's catalogue - now that it stretches 2 and half
decades. Giving Orchid a spin requires one to remove themselves from all the
proceeding albums, and attempt to listen to it as the debut it was - an
impossible task.
Orchid is definitely
Opeth's "most metal" album in that it follows all the tropes present
in metal in 1995. That being said, it is hugely ambitious for its time period -
competing with forward-thinking Swedes Edge of Sanity and certainly At the
Gates.
But the emphasis on
the "metal" thing comes from even the softer passages - rooted firmly
in what was established as acceptable "soft" metal passages (read:
classical guitar style finger-picking). Some circles refer to Orchid as a Blackened-Death
metal record, and there are a few reasons for this connection.
First-and-foremost, the song titles and cover art: hardly typical of the
Swedish Death Metal scene, with titles almost plagiarizing their Norwegian
counterparts: "Under the Weeping Moon," The Twilight is my
Robe…" the band has a dark theme going on here. The other piece is the
decidedly melancholic tone of the dual guitar harmonies which are really the
bands go-to in terms of the heavier passages - immediately demonstrated on both
"In the Mist She Was Standing," and the dark brooding opening three
or so minutes of "Forest of October." The third black metal quality
is a rather thin production with heavy use of reverb. Some of this was style
choice, the other, was definitely budget limitations.
No matter what black
metal elements are present here, there is no doubt in my mind that Opeth were a
Swedish death metal band, growing up worshiping local heroes like Entombed,
Unleashed, and Dismember. They clearly entered the scene with intentions of stretching
the genre as far as it would go -
something no one can argue they eventually did.
But that brings us
to Orchid. So it took over 10 straight listens to wash most of the modern Opeth
outta my ears so that I could give this sucker a clean listen. Like most
overly-ambitious progressive bands (metal or otherwise), in their early years
they have all the key elements except one. They have musicianship, they have
talent, and they have the ability to come up with amazing riffs and sequences.
The lacking element is composition, and while Orchid does not completely lack
in this department, it does fall into that feeling of a big collection of good
ideas rather than a cohesive song at times. Most of the uninitiated will admit
telling the songs apart is difficult, mainly because you have only 7 tracks.
Take the ambitious piano instrumental "Silhouette" and the short
interlude "Requiem" out of the mix, then you are left with 5 songs
that range from 10 to 14 minutes and each one of them goes through a large
number of shifts in tone, tempo, and direction. It also doesn't help that many
of the songs are through-composed (meaning they do not return to previously
played sections - they play it once and move on). From a writer's perspective -
that's a giant undertaking, to a listener, it can be overwhelming.
This means that
Orchid is best enjoyed as a start-to-finish listen, taking in all the elements
as one goes and enjoying the evolutions. Through my repeated listens, it grew
on me more and more. My nitpicks are the production (sometimes the clean guitar
tone carries a punchier low-end than the distortion which means the switch does
not accomplish what it should). The other would be Anders Nordin's obvious
limitations (with the exception of his incredible piano playing). I'm not a
drummer myself, but it is obvious they asked a lot of him, and he delivers most
of it rather timidly and unconvincingly. It is competent enough I suppose, but
he is clearly the band's weakest link here. The double bass seems to be the
choice when he can't think of anything else and the creativity lacks severely.
Akerfeldt had not
yet mastered his vocals yet either. The grunt is sufficient, but man-oh-man did
he ever get better at that - part of the lacking could be the production. His
clean vocals are the real sore point here - they are shaky, unconfident, and rather
bland. This is where it is almost impossible to erase the memory of how good
they are now.
It is difficult to
pick out a favorite track because, as mentioned above - they are all so long
and contain so many transitions. So I will go with "Under the Weeping
Moon" as it contains of one the coolest parts - an eerie repeat triplet
pattern on clean guitar underneath drum hits and feedback that lulls the
listener to sleep right before it explodes again into the death metal proper.
Opeth's debut is
damn fine. I believe it will appeal to most fans of 90's Swedish DM, and I
think most Opeth die-hards still defend it (though I doubt the majority of
their modern fan base have even broken it out of its plastic). If it has been a
while for you (as it was for me), give it a spin, you'll dig it again.
