OPETH = GREAT DRIVING MUSIC
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 10:53am by Vince NeilsteinAs Axl told ya’ll, I was down in Northeastern Kentucky this weekend setting up a homestead for the soon-to-be-built MetalSucks Mansion Appalachia Annex. That shit is real! My first stop was at a Home Depot just over the border in West Virginia to buy supplies. As I was tooling around the store with a shopping cart full of random odds and ends, some dude looked at me quizzically, and perhaps a little skeptically of this bearded New York Jew he asked “I don’t mean to be nosey… but what are ya’ll doing with a hatchet and a cooler?” If I’d been on my game I would’ve come up with a witty/metal answer about chopping bodies up or something, but I failed. Maybe I should’ve just said “Just going out to the dance club, you know, usual night on the town.”
Anyway, the drive to and from KY is not a short one. We got a bit of a late start, and as night fell we were somewhere in the sharp, angular hills of West Virginia, the rolling, jagged green cliffs holding dense, white fog like something out of an epic metal music video. As daylight quickly faded, it was one of the most serene and beautiful landscapes I’ve ever seen. The mood called for Opeth. Blackwater Park became the soundtrack of choice and was the absolute perfect match for this epic, epic part of our journey. Not gonna lie, I was kinda pretending in my mind that we were driving through the Swedish wilderness. Not that I actually have any idea what the Swedish wilderness looks like. West Virginia = Sweden??
Here’s Opeth performing “Bleak” live a few years back.
-VN
Sounds like you went by my area over here. Why would a bearded New York Jew be buying a home in KY anyway?
opeth = teh awesome
There’s a lot of metal Jews here in Louisville, but they spend most of their time up in Cincy.
opeth tonight in nyc cant wait. havent seen these dudes in years. anybody going???
I am and I’m psyched.
Opeth is good driving music… I’ve also found that Queens Of The Stone Age’s ‘Songs For The Deaf’ is a great driving album.
KY is a lawless state. Its fucking great. Well….for a short visit. I recommend no more. I live in Ohio and KY is where we go to throw down some shine in the woods and crank out the Meatshits :)
Amazing live. you can feel the music ripping through your whole body. I wasn’t a big fan until I saw them live. Now I”m totally hooked. Nice look.
I actually made the trip from WV to Columbus, OH this weekend to see Opeth and they were fucking great. Even my non-metal girlfriend enjoyed the show.
HELMET is the best drivin music to me. cant beat blastin some meantime. or betty.
my home state is beuatiful thats for sure. but driving through and living in it is two diffrent things.
ive lived in 4 diffrent states and still, WV is tops when it comes to living.
also
seen OPETH live in Pittsburgh while back with Enslaved and they where damn good. Wish Enslaved had a longer set though.
Whenever i rearrange my abode, be it living room or bedroom, I always have to listen to Still Life. So i can totally see how they’re good driving music, however i’ll never drive so i’ll never truly know.
Woo, Opeth. Seeing them tomorrow, can’t wait!
Why do they hide the keyboardist like that? He always looks like a sideman instead of a true member of the band, and it just looks odd to see him rocking out back there but with only the upper part of his torso visible.
Why do the guitarists (and bass) get to show off their legs, but the keyboardist has to be hidden like that? Whatever reason you come up with isn’t good enough for Jordan Rudess…
Legs are overrated.
Yeah, I agree Opeth is the shit either live or on CD. Regarding driving music though, Tool is exceptionally good for that activity. It works for night or day, rain, snow, or shine.
It’s also fun to gauge distances in a trip with the length of an album. For example, a trip from Baltimore to NY is about a Tool and an Opeth album’s worth.
And like you all alluded to, Virginia/WV is a beautiful part of the country. A lot of it is nothing but endless hills, trees, creeks, and rivers… good stuff.
Opeth is great driving music through the massiveness of Texas too, Vince. Its always on my truck on road trips. I’m thinking of doing an Opeth-exclusive trip next time I go visit my brother who lives in Nebraska, yep. All the way from here, South Texas tip. I’d probably go through all the discography.
Haha, I live right in the Eastern KY/WV area..
it really is gorgeous, but come on guys..there is nothing here, lmao.
And I agree–Opeth is indeed also my music of choice for driving through the state.
“there is nothing here” = exactly
where the fuck were you? Ashland?
Glad to know there are other people from WV on here. I will agree, in the fog this place definitely has a swedish metal feel yet I know of absolutely no black metal bands around where I am at all, its a shame.