#3: OPETH – BLACKWATER PARK
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 5:00pm by Satan Rosenbloom
We recently polled a wide array of musicians, managers, publicists, label reps, and writers from within the world of metal to find out what they thought the 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century So Far have been. Eligible albums were released between January 1, 2000 and April 1, 2009. Each panelist turned in a ballot, with their #1 album worth 21 points, their #2 album worth 20 points, and so on and so forth. The ballots are now in and we’ll be counting down one album a day until we reach #1. Today we present the #3 album, coming in with a total of 237 points…
Opeth, Blackwater Park (Music for Nations, 2001)
Mikael Åkerfeldt – Vocals/Guitars
Peter Lindgren – Guitars
Martin Mendez – Bass
Martin Lopez – Drums
Produced by Steven Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt
There is no metal band that traverses the chasm between beauty and brutality as confidently as Sweden’s Opeth. From their first album Orchid on through last year’s Watershed, Mikael Åkerfeldt and his bandmates have embraced the complexity and romanticism of 70s progressive rock, rejecting two of metal’s central tenets: it’s gotta be simple, and it’s gotta be ugly.
On the surface, Blackwater Park is prototypical Opeth – it folds acoustic and electric passages, furious blastbeats and 6/8 waltzes, clean tones and disharmony into lengthy suites, each one ornately detailed and flawlessly played. Pretty much any one of Opeth’s post-millennial opuses could have made it on this list (and another one did – check #10), so why does this one sit loftily at the #3 spot on this list?
Blackwater Park represented Opeth’s “Ah-ha!” moment, when all of their ambitious ideas crystallized into a set of back-to-back amazing songs, rendered in glorious Technicolor sound. The riffage on “Leper Affinity,” “Bleak” and the title track still rank among Opeth’s most thrilling; “Dirge for November” and the interlude “Patterns In the Ivy” feature some of the band’s most hauntingly spare music; a multi-tracked Åkerfeldt blazes through vocal harmonies on ”Harvest” and “The Funeral Portrait” like a death metal Boston.
Blackwater Park was Opeth’s best-sounding record to date, thanks largely to producer Steven Wilson, also the guitarist of ambient prog band Porcupine Tree. The mix is spacious and detailed, its acoustic and electric textures meshing and flowing beautifully. Wilson added depth to a set of songs that already existed in four dimensions. Sonically, musically and lyrically, it all came together on this one. Opeth have continued to follow their singular path to ever more intriguing places, but they’ve never cut a better record than Blackwater Park.
-SR
THE LIST SO FAR:
#4 – Killswitch Engage, Alive or Just Breathing
#6 – Killswitch Engage, The End of Heartache
#7 – Lamb of God, Ashes of the Wake
#9 – Gojira, From Mars to Sirius
#13 – Mastodon, Blood Mountain
#14 – System of a Down, Toxicity
#15 – Nachtmystium, Assassins: Black Meddle, Part 1
#16 – Machine Head, The Blackening
#18 – Lamb of God, New American Gospel
#20 – Shadows Fall, The War Within
#21 – Slipknot, Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses
THE PANEL OF VOTERS
Chris Adler, Lamb of God
Dan And, Bison B.C.
Ben Apatoff, Apatoff for Destruction/Metal Injection
Jason Bittner, Shadows Fall
Tim Brennan, Ferret Music/Channel Zero Entertainment
Freddy Cai, Painkiller Magazine
Ian Christe, Bazillion Points
Reverend David J. Ciancio, Yeah! Management
Betsey Cichoracki, Relapse Records
Paul Conroy, Ferret Music/Channel Zero Entertainment
J. Costa, Thy Will Be Done
Dallas Coyle, ex-God Forbid/Coyle Media
Doc Coyle, God Forbid
CT, Rwake
Anso DF, MetalSucks/Hipsters Out of Metal!
Vince Edwards, Metal Blade Records
Charles Elliott, Abysmal Dawn/Nuclear Blast Records
Brian Fair, Shadows Fall
Leo Ferrante, Warner Music Group
D.X. Ferris, author 33 1/3: Reign in Blood/Freelance Journalist
Mike Gitter, Roadrunner Records
Nick Green, Decibel
Matt Grenier, August Burns Red
Anthony Guzzardo, Earache Records
Kevin Hufnagel, Dysrhythmia
Mark Hunter, Chimaira
Steve Joh, Century Media
EJ Johantgen, Prosthetic Records
Kim Kelly, Metal Injection/Hails & Horns/Freelance Journalist
Josh “The J” Key, Psychostick
Jason Lekberg, Epic Records
Eyal Levi, Daath
Bob Lugowe, Relapse Records
Matt McChesney, The Autumn Offering
Jake McReynolds, Psychostick
Marc Meltzer, The Syndicate
Josh Middleton, Sylosis
Matt Moore, Rumpelstiltskin Grinder
Vince Neilstein, MetalSucks
Sammy O’Hagar, MetalSucks
Anton OyVey, MetalSucks/Bacon Jew
Rob Pasbani, Metal Injection
Alex Preiss, Psychostick
Carlos Ramirez, NoiseCreep/Universal Music Group
Brian Rocha, Fresno Media USA
Jeremy Rosen, Roadrunner Records
Axl Rosenberg, MetalSucks
Satan Rosenbloom, MetalSucks/Cerebral Metalhead
David Bee Roth, MetalSucks
Jason Rudolph, Heavy Hitter, Inc.
Amy Sciarretto, Roadrunner Records/NoiseCreep
Carl Severson, Ferret Music/Channel Zero Entertainment
Gary Suarez, MetalSucks/No Yoko No/Brainwashed
Geoff Summers, The End Records/Crustcake
Bram Teitelman, The Syndicate/Metal Insider
Alisha Turull, Heavy Hitter, Inc.
Christopher R. Weingarten, 1000TimesYes/Freelance Journalist
Down to palaces and Leviathan now, wonder who gets #1.
Who said those albums would be on the list?
Common sense after viewing prior picks on this list. Palaces and Leviathan are widely regarded as the best albums from both bands.
yes those are clearly the next two albums
Ya im 100% certain its those too albums now since they put the weaker albums by them on the list
Im kinda dissapointed Protest the hero’s fortress wasnt on the list at all,that was an amazing album and metalsucks even gave it a perfect review, i think that should have been at least 21
Protest the Hero isn’t on the list because being vegan pussies makes you totally not metal.
Cattle Decapitation is at least fairly metal.
PtH is totally hardcore though.
okay so maybe not because it came out too recently but… couldnt it be leviathan and crack the skye? EVERYBODY is on Mastodon’s dick, and CtS got a 5/5 on this site. Just sayin. I wanna see Nocturnal, The Last Kind Words, and The Fathomless Mastery but God hates me.
yes i do iggins, yes i do
next 2 albums:
#2: Killswitch Engage: Killswitch Engage (2000)
#1: Killswitch Engage: Killswitch Engage (2009)
This list brought to you by Killswitch Engage. The band so hard it had to name to albums the same thing.
dude…you can’t spell “TWO” so you should probably not give album naming advice…just sayin’!
Haha. Owned like a motherfucker.
It has to be Leviathan ( even though I fucking hate Mastodon) and Ashes of the Wake. Ashes better be number 1. I need to give this Opeth album a shot everyone sucks them off.
Ashes already showed up on the list…
I’m surprised this list hasn’t already included Children of Bodom. I have a gut feeling Hate Crew Deathroll or Follow the Reaper will be in either spot
#1??? um… maybe the crown… deathrace king , maybe destroyer 666 phoenix rising, fuck even maiden brave new world. oh wait, i guess i am too old for this shit. sorry folks! see ya in 2000… o wait…
defintly 10,000 days number two and
crack the skye number one…since everyone’s on mastodon’s nuts
Great album. Not as good as their masterpiece “Still Life”, but a great album nonetheless.
I just fucking said that, but I guess your post popped first. !!
MAYH is their masterpiece.
My Arms Your Hearse is hit or miss with me. Songs like “When”, “April Ethereal” and of course “Demon of the fall” are amazing….but the rest of the album reeks of filler.
I think “Still LIfe” is when they completely perfected their sound. They have always been kinda clumsy with the heavy/soft transitions, but on “Still Life” they mastered it. Everything flows perfectly.
It’s how I see it and a couple of their albums.
I agree…. Still Life is the only one I will listen to all the way through. I enjoy Blackwater Park as well, but not much of anything they did afterwords. The riffs are seriously lacking on the post BWP albums , in my opinion. They just don’t have that sincere, somber mood anymore.
Still Life is a masterpiece, my first Opeth album I heard. I bought it along Ghost Reveries for 2/25$ and when I listened to Ghost Reveries I was like:”whut?”
Agreed, but I kinda think it’s a little inconsistent quality-wise, some are forgettable and there is Drapery Falls… that is one hell of a song. The relevance of the list was already questioned tons of times, but as good as that album may be, the only list I could see it is a best albums of the year list…
TOTALLY! Still Life is my favorite album of all time!
Still Life is my least favourite Opeth album for some reason. Maybe one day I’ll suddenly “get it”, but for now, BP is my favourite, and by quite a wide margin.
Give Still Life another chance at some point. You won’t regret it.
Yep, mark me as another that thinks Still Life is their best, but BWP is awesome also, probably my second fav of theirs.
Duh.
only 3 ??!?!?!?!?!? 2nd better be amazing but yes if anyone bitches at this everyone will find you and burn your house down
I’ll take it. I’ve got no complaints here, great album. …..although, I think Still Life is their masterpiece, this is certainly their best of this decade.
Finally, no mallcore for the day.
Incredible album. Thank god it’s one less top spot Lamb of God can take.
The other two albums on this list had better be pretty fucking amazing.
I think this should probably have been #1. While I like Ghost Reveries slightly better, the difference is very little, and BWP really had a lot to do with Opeth’s current sound.
I think this is an album that just about everyone can agree is a masterpiece.
Wow!!! You guys didn’t want to shove another Killswitch record down our throats? Oops sorry, I forgot you’re savin’ that for #1. A great pic. An amazing band that blows away just about everyone else on this list.
fuck killswitch. still pissed at them for missing the MAAW tourstop in Pensacola. i was stoked about seeing chimaira and spineshank but my wife was beyond pissed that KSE didn’t show. and when she’s not happy, nobody is happy!
Give me tips. My wife to be hates metal, Goddamnit. How to I convert this bitch? She recently caught me listening to Gojira, and told me “What is this, it’s not awful like Mastodon.” I wanted to kill her.
Wow, that sounds backwards. I can imagine the average woman liking Mastodon before Gojira, just from a vocal standpoint.
You’d think so.. Crack The Skye makes her upset.
She’s originally from Salt Lake, so she’s “hXc” or whatever. Her excuse for hating metal is that it’s “negative.” When I ask why she likes hardcore, she says it’s because of how positive that whole movement is… “I’m like..if I want a bunch of grown men to sing about happy shit, like getting along, and striving to be the best or whatever, I’d listen to christian music.”
I didn’t get any that whole weekend.
Nice! I make her listen to it in the car… the rally nasty shit like deicide and blood red throne. Then i put on some more accessible shit and she says “well, this isn’t so bad.” so i let her think she gets control of the radio when she requests the more mellow metal that i introduced her to. see, double reverse psychology.
yeah, she says deicide sounds like cookie monster..
I don’t know how to get her mind off of top 40 shit on the radio. I should slap her hand next time she reaches for that FM button.
Farhaad –
hmm. for give me if i’m wrong, and I’m sure that you think I am, but it sounds like you’re with a chic that craves the blacksnake. time to dump her; that is, unless she’s a squirter. if she is then keep her at all costs and send me vids for proof.
Deicide is the epitome of cookie monster.
I’ve weaned GF’s into hard shit that didn’t have screaming without too much trouble.
Try Melvins; out of their 27 albums there’s GOT to one you both can relate to.
PS:
Any girl can squirt if you know how to make it happen. But don’t swallow it.
AND, buy rubber or plastic sheets ’cause your bed will get destroyed.
Great choice. It will silence the metal elitist nerds on the site atleast. It’s a fucking great album though.
Im certainly not an Opeth fan by any means, but my one complaint: So are we just gonna have yet ANOTHER Mastodon and LOG album for the next 2 picks? BORING. I want Meshuggah.
If Meshuggah didn’t make it on the list by now, they won’t make it in the last two….
*clings to desperate, fragile hope*
but obzen is that good.
obZen is better than that good.
It’s fucking astonishing.
As is Watershed :)
I bought Obzen and it was fucking stolen 10 minutes later. I still have yet to listen to it. Bullshit.
damn pirates! i mean yarrr!
I won’t be returning to this site if Meshuggah doesn’t make the list. That would just be fucking disrespectful.
Hope we don’t get another LOG. I like their older work but firmly believe Ashes was their most complete, epic, and accessible effort. Never really got into mastodon but the way everyone raves about them, I should probably give them another listen.
Oden, if you like heavier stuff, start with Mastodon’s ‘Remission’ and work your way up chronologically to the new one. They’re not the same band they were on ‘Remission’, but their sound still fits them as a whole. They’ve just gotten more into psychotropic drugs. :)
thanks for the tip. i like to hear progression over a band’s career.
FINALLY
a good fucking album, probably one of my all time favourites
i knew for sure this would be in the top three
SYL doesn’t sound like they made the list at all… sigh.
Been meaning to check out this Opeth record, though. I’ll probably do that this weekend.
Yeah, I was hoping the list would continue to suck ass 7 ways from Sunday too, by including the overrated post-”City” SYL…Made for fun reading on an alleged Metal site.
Still though, with Opeth added to the list, it’s still blowing goats. To put it in lame man’s terms that you can all understand: Blackwater Park is to Opeth what Reload is to Metallica.
close. blackwater park is the equivalent of the black album: the most accessible and the best illustration of what the band can do, but the beginning of the end as far as keepin it real.
Opeth comes out with a brilliant album that is beautifully structured, written, Pink Floyd production value and was one of the few albums that put Death metal back on the map but all you can do is compare this Magnum Opus to two of the worst fucking albums ever recorded?! WOW…put down the fucking marijuana.
Everyone knows that Master../i> had far superior production than (ugh) Black so,yes, this was Opeth’s Master of Puppets
End of Fucking Story…
Death metal Boston is a term I have never heard before
RIP Brad Delp, one of rock’s greatest vocalists
This is an excellent and well-deserving pick.
However it’s unfortunate that this list is beyond redemption at this point.
I hope the MS server is ready for the sudden increase in traffic. Then again, it’s been stress-tested pretty well over the last couple of weeks.
This should be number 1
there we go i was hopin a tad higher. but i hope leviathan is #1 with death is this communion. i mean matt pike is a fuckin beast
Yes, in a fair world, Death is this Communion would be rep’ped on this list.
Pike is a fucking beast, but these fucking douchebags couldn’t tell a good album from a pile of dog shit on the side of the road
Come on BTBAM’s Colors.
Are you fucking serious? You want to see Between the Buried and Me on this list after all the shit that has come down the pipeline? Wow. Just wow.
Fuck yes.
Strange, I had the song Bleak stuck in my head before I clicked the link.
“it folds acoustic and electric passages, furious blastbeats and 6/8 waltzes”
Blast beats??? huh? Time to clean your fucking ears.
Was wondering whether there was some hidden track, with these supposed’ blast beats’ on them I had missed
good call
Well deserved.
Look like no Between the Buried and Me or Black Dahlia Murder on the list. Oh well, at least this album deserves to be here.
I guess BTBAM isn’t gonna be on the list, I’m thoroughly dissapointed
Colors without doubt should be here (imo), doubt most of the guys polled would have heard it tho
Colors is a great album but definately not one of the greatest ever. All BTBAM is is Dream Theater with screaming. Not saying their not a great band, just nothing revolutionary.
for some reason, the cover pic on bwp makes me think of the story on still life.
and now that i think about it, the pic on still life is somewhat appropriate to the story on mayh.
(thanks for adding another good album. the list is more contentiously interesting when it goes good/bad/good/bad, you know?)
“The parts I was awake for really blew my mind!”
Hooray!
about damn time!
now top 3 spots coul go to
Mastodon, Lamb of God or…..
Ghost Reveries
Only two spots left genius
I’ll bet you a million dollars Ghost Reveries is not in the Top 2.
Beat me to the point
And Ghost Reveries was already on the list
thank you for pointing it out
Much better. Now we just need Ire Works and Colors up there…
How are all the High on Fire LPs gonna fit into the final 2 slots?
WTF is going on here. I haven’t heard a peep about HoF for most of this countdown and now everyone is saying they should be on here. I agree, but I have one question: where have you guys been?
HOF is good but i dont know about great. checked out their most recent effort and it had a few good tracks, nothing that made me want to spin it again.
kinda like 3iob. good for a quick listen but gets old real quick
Prefer Ghost Reveries hands down but I can still appreciate this album.
My concern is with the albums that were left off. Absolutely no power metal is listed, supposedly because it didn’t create an “influence” on other music? I wonder how many bands were omitted from the list because the put forth SEVERAL excellent albums and it split the votes so none of their albums made the top 21.
– Amon Amarth – Either “Fate of Norns” or “With Oden On Our Side” should have been included. Those are both excellent albums!
– Chimaira – “The Impossibility of Reason”, self titled, or “Resurrection” could have all received votes, thus making it harder for any of them to make the list.
– Dragonforce – I know everyone fucking hates these guys but I’m surprised that neither Sonic Firestorm nor Inhuman Rampage is listed.
What about BTBAM Colors? Not really my style but I can still appreciate it’s brilliance! should be here. Alaska was killer too.
Haunted – rEVOLVEr!!
Swallow the sun – Hope
Deicide – The Stench of Redemption
Dethclock – Dethalbum?
Would have liked to see some SYL/Townsend or Turisas on here.
several more I’m forgetting right now. help me out here?
Dillinger Escape Plan – Miss Machine/Ire Works, Protest the Hero – Fortress, Cynic – Traced in Air, BTBAM – Alaska/Colors,Gojira – The way of all Flesh, Nile – Black seeds of vengeance, Intronaut – Null/Void, Textures – Silhouettes, SYL/Devin Townsend – Any number of records, High on Fire – Blessed black wings, Blotted Science – Machinations of Dementia, thats just of the top of my head, everyone here could name 100 different ones, all down to taste
def need to check out Dillinger & intronaut; have had a difficult time finding the latter. HOF is good but not top 21 IMO. i should give them another listen. I’ll check out the rest of these bands you mention.
I agree with some of your pics. Dragonforce though? They write terrible music, heard one song you’ve heard em all. You have a good argument with Chimaira though, I would have guessed Impossibility of Reason to be on here for sure.
Darkest Hour – Votes on multiple CD’s may have cost them as well.
Haha agree with the above post though, worthless to name bands,. Its all a taste thing. Have to remember for this list though, a lot of people are bitching about certain bands not being here on this list (ziltoid) most of these voters are in bands. They all play heavy music and most probably don’t have the time or the means while they are on the road or whatever to keep up on every underground band.
i think ziltoid is on a middle school summer band trip somewhere. he’s been offline for a while now.
agree completely though. just mentioned d-force because this list is supposed to be about the albums that had the most impact on the genre. inhuman rampage brought in a lot of new fans to metal. as i wrote earlier – IMO no matter how shitty the gateway – bringing kids into metal instead of pop is always a good thing.
The list is the best 21 albums of the decade….. so far – if we were talking about bands that have had the most impact of their respective genres you would be looking at the originators or pioneers of their particular style of music, which in turn would create so many arguements there’s not enough voltage in the universe to electroshock me back into coherence
answers on a postcard
Seinfeld quote
slave —> to your point, powerglove certainly shouldn’t be on the list. but I don’t think they’ve really had any influence on metal either, except *maybe” for the parody side. even so, that distinction would have to go to Zimmers Hole which brings me back to Dev.
Lets wait until number 1 to start up the shitstorm that will be : “Your favorite album that was left off the list”
yeah yeah, i know; but, i think we can all agree that none of the bands i listed will get a top two spot. that being assumed, it’s complete bullshit that bands like slipknot, shadows fall, and deftones get in while some of these others didn’t. lol, that just reminded me of the headline banner for the day…
or perhaps they all deserved to be on this list
There is only a couple of albums on the list I have had any issue with, and they were for musical reasons, not because they weren’t ‘heavy’ enough or ‘metal’ enough -The hatebreed record is one dimensional to me and LOG are just one of those bands that I could never stick with, but I’m aware of the influence they have had so its apples and oranges – And I would have had this record at Number 1
I’ll help you out. You meant “Dethklok” and that part when you said “Dragonforce,” you meant “Skeletonwitch.”
*nods*
yeah i’ve been drinking this afternoon, meant dethklok. and skeletonwhich is good but they did not bring the middle school kids into metal the way dragonforce did. no matter how shitty the gateway, bringing the kiddos into metal instead of rap is always good. and D-force damn sure had a huge influence in that regard.
I’m glad that Dragonforce never made it on this list, because in my book THE power metal band is Demons And Wizards.
…
Blind Guardian is THE power metal band. Hell, that’s basically the good half of D&W, and the other half is shitty Jon Schaffer.
Blind Guardian is good too, but why limit yourself to just one band for an entire genre? Dream Evil, Stratovarius, Falconer, Sonata Arctica, Gamma Ray, Heavenly, Kamelot, Rhapsody…
all have their high spots
I didn’t mean to limit myself to just one band. I meant that if anyone would like “THE power metal band,” Blind Guardian is probably the best choice. They are really the best example of how to perfectly play power metal. I personally find Kamelot to be better, but BG embody all of the qualities of power metal moreso than Kamelot does. But yes, those others also have their high spots.
Blind Guardian is by far my favorite power metal band. I have trouble finding fault with any album they produce.
Terrific album. Nice pick.
I had expected this to be number 1, phenomenal record – I’m getting worried now Meshuggah won’t be on this list at all, since we have Leviathan to come, which is an excellent album, but with palaces still to appear..hmmm lets just see
Me too dude……….no meshuggah…………ah well……#2 As The Palaces Burn #1 Leviathan
Whatever about not being in the top 2, it would the biggest surprise on this list to me if no Meshuggah record was featured on this list, particularly Obzen, since it was their most linear to date, whilst maintaining that killer groove they have, but I agree that its looking like Palaces and Leviathan to fight out the top two, whats the bets its Iowa and Death Magnetic!
As the Palaces Burn is better than Leviathan.
Get ready to face the fact that there will not be another Lamb of God album in this list. No matter how hard you love the albums that didn’t make it.
As the Palaces Burn will make it based on the fact that New American Gospel made it.
Your a fucking moron if you think that they wont put Palaces on this list Axolotl
OOOO I LIKE
You sir are gay.
Great CD, not going to be a fun thread.
Unless people start arguing on what albums should have been mentioned, since there shouldn’t be any real debate on whether this album should be where it is.
Jesus…..what a fucking killer album.
By far my favorite album of this century thus far. So many albums deserve some sort of mention on this list, sadly there isn’t any room for them
Also a small point of interest on the list, the gap between this one and the previous entry (Alive or Just Breathing) is larger than between any other two adjacent albums at 33 as oppose to the previous gap of 23 which we saw between 4 & 5 as well as between 11 & 12
My favorite Opeth album, although Ghost Reveries is a close second.
very close second. I personally think its better. Much harder edge.
I love this album. My favorite Opeth album.
But I think a lot of great albums are going to be left off the list.
Just off the top of my head – Palaces, Wrath, Death Magnetic, Fate of Norns of With Oden On our Side, Obzen, The Way of all flesh, and Death is this communion. Thats without really thinking about it. I would take all of these albums over most of the crap that found its way on to the list.
I’m with you on a few of these, but death magnetic? don’t think that influenced too much except their pocketbooks.
“Its gotta be ugly and it’s gotta be simple”
Since when are these two of metal’s central tenants?
Is nu-metal the only thing you’ve been exposed to?
NILE: ANNIHILATION OF THE WICKED!!!
Arguably the heaviest band and heaviest record of all time. Or what about Dimmu Borgir’s Death Cult Armageddon? If those are the top spots then I’ll be ok with this list. But again, I’d like to see a list of the albums that just missed making this list, like, a top 50, the 29 albums that didn’t make it…
That Nile album would be on my top ten for the decade. And this Opeth record would be my number one.
I wrote off Nile 10 years ago; sounds like I need to check them out. instead of seeing the top 50 or top 29, I’d prefer to see each panelist’s picks and troll from there.
You know Metalsucks and company want the hits, surely they’ll do whatever they can to keep up the debate. we might see it…
AWESOME album, by far the band’s best. I first thought Nile to be a really strong band, but after getting their whole discography, I feel all of their other albums are just over average except the first which I consider “good” and their last… “good” too. Ityphallic is way too formulatic, you know what will happen next. It’s like they took AotW and changed the riffs, for good riffs, but ones that wouldn’t have made it for AotW.
H2O knows what’s up. Ityphallic was really disappointing after the brilliant Annihilation of the Wicked.
I also find Niles first album to be their best. It was fresh and new at the time it came out, and really blew away their contemporaries. However, they have been beating a dead horse (mummy) for WAYYYYYY too fucking long. Its very,very formulaic. I do love the song “Chapter for Transforming into a Snake” off “in their darkened shrines” though.
am i the only one that wants to see Children of Bodom’s Follow The Reaper somewhere?
Despite having lost faith in recent Bodom offerings, I would’ve much preferred Follow The Reaper to most of the albums on the list…it could surprise us with a top 2 appearance though
Although i believe it WOULD deserve a top 2 appearance i doubt it will. I have kind of lost faith with this list. The chance of them redeeming themselves with a killer top 3 is unlikely. (although blackwater is a good start).
and your name reminded me that there isnt any folk or viking metal on this list which is odd…very little melodic death either. I would have loved to see Slania on the list…or any Moonsorrow album…or some fucking Insomnium..or Arch Enemy! fuck i could go on forever.
I might even consider Darkane as far as melodic death goes
And I would’ve loved to see Spirit or Slania too, but you figure the boys from Psychostick are giving those disks any spins?
agree 100%, unfortunately, I doubt and don’t think COB deserve top 2. maybe top 10 or 15. HCD was my first COB release. something wild and especially FTR are fucking monumental!
reminds me of how my dad blasted deep purple, zz top and zepplin when i was young. even now, it gives me an appreciation for old school. I’ll do the same for my son, except it’ll be COB, devildriver, chimaira, opeth, and other bands i’ve mentioned here…
bet he’ll like Alestorm by the time he’s five
Ugh. Bodom is SUCH a boring fucking band. The guy can play guitar, I get it…..but the music is so, so blacd. Its like fucking hair metal. They are the very definition of an ‘entry level’ band.
Or perhaps some fuckin Bloodbath? Take one listen to the Fathomless Mastery and tell me its not a classic.
The Fathomless Mastery is good but Resurrection Through Carnage is much better and should be top 10.
List needs more wigger slam.
as well as a lot more sumerincore and screamo crunk. wigger slam goes really well with screamo crunk.
Despite your sarcasm, Sumeriancore would not be that bad. The Faceless deserve to be on this list somewhere, as they’re on of the better technical death metal bands around nowadays. I dunno about any of you, personally, Planetary Duality is in my top 5 for the decade, but I know it doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of appearing in the top 2 on this list.
Sumeriancore is awful. The Faceless are the best on of those bands, and even at that, they’re just boring, unoriginal tech death. And Born of Osiris….HA FUCKING HA! Awfully shitty band.
Born of Osiris was unlistenable
SHREDDED WHEAT
FUCK YEAH SHREDDED WHEAT! It shreds! :)
And wow, but I think I just agreed with Ziltoid again, on two counts. That Faceless album was a lot of meh to me, and Born of Osiris blows big time.
i was playing UFC Undisputed last night and my wife said she liked a song on there. after googling it, found out it was a Hollywood Undead song called “undead.” I swear I was so close to punching that bitch in the back of her fo’head. that shit was unforgivable!
One good song on that Faceless album and i’d rather shave off my ears with a cheese grater than listen to born of osiris
as expected
i hope crack the sKye is NOT on the list. I like it but it is one of the most overrated albums in recent memory.
1. Its not out long enough to make this list
2. Leviathan is a certainty for either of the next two spots
3. When they make their best albums of the decade list at the END of this year, this one will be in the top 5 (imo)
agreed
That is the smartest comment ever on this website.. Definatley Overated deluxe
this review does not do this album justice.
but i’m glad this is number three though
I agree with this. This IS Opeth’s BEST record. I agree with your review, except i dont remember any blast beats on here at all. Actually i dont remember any blast beats in Opeth’s music until their newest record. This record was all mid-tempo, but it does include many beautiful clean passages and interludes. Blackwater Park is what got me into Opeth and introduced me to progressive death metal in general. Should be top 3!
Disfear; Live The Storm, any Isis, Intronaut; Void, Katatonia; The Last Fair Deal Gone Down, Dark Tranquility; Damage Done, Soilwork; Natural Born Chaos. Just a few of the reasons why i think it should have been one spot per band. (only thing Killswitch ever ended for me was insomnia)
Nice call on the Disfear record!
Great choice. That leaves Leviathan and one other spot. i think you guys are overestimating Palaces though. Personally I’d like Fortress.
Am I the only one on here is isn’t sarcastic about wanting Leviathan to be #1?
no but i really think leviathan can’t possibly beat out brokencyde and hollywood undead.
i see what you did there
Great Album!
Loads more really great albums have been discarded though. Palaces and Leviathan is most peoples guess for 1/2 spots and I agree, but no Way Of All Flesh or any Chimaira or Down III, no Clutch?! Satyricon’s latest was extremely good, so was it’s predecessor. Dimmu’s In Sorte Diaboli was a killer record. Last Kind Words by Devildriver? Death Is This Communion by HOF. Hate Eternal, Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, Decapitated and Suffocation have all put out great records this decade! In terms of influence I’d say Roadrunner United was a great gateway CD, I myself bought it for Slipknots input and ended up with my first taste of Deicide. Trivium even? What with MS’s leanings surprised not to see PTH or God Forbid….
That makes 17 bands/records that have been criminally overlooked just off the top of my head! And by my count at least 7 unworthy bands/CDs that made the list.
Metal really does suck when it’s picked by Metal Sucks!
well it kinda wasn’t picked by metalsucks. it was voted on by a bunch of rqandom dudes wasn’t ti.
8 of the list of pickers were MS journos, that’s an overbearing influence on it pretty much. Either way, it still sucks!
Trivium and Haste the Day were my gateway.
Dude, this isnt even a metal album WTF LOLZ!!!!1!!111one!!!
i agree.
Alaska or Colors should be on here.
Amon Amarth should’ve made it.
Arsis still has a chance!
and Dragonforce, even though they’re show offs, sonic firestorm deserved a slot.
Arsis deserves it. A Preservation of Guilt was a masterpiece.
Yeah that Arsis album was a killer… “Celebration of Guilt” that is. Better than 90% of this list.
haha yeah my bad.
arsis? will have to give them a listen
Please do….they are damn good!
if BTBAM ain’t on there i will fucking give this site a virus……just kidding, but srsly WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!
YES!
I would have liked to see this at #1, but hey, I can’t complain. Great pick MS.
You people know Still Life is prior to 2000, right? It can’t be on this list. Blackwater Park is easily their second best.
don’t let silly things like facts get in the way
As far as I can tell there is no one saying it should be added to the list. We were just mentioning it to, you know, spur conversation, since this is in fact a message board. Right?
This is about the 9th album on this list that I really like, and the 5th that I could consider a masterpiece. There are a ton of albums I would rather have on this list. But I can’t remember any of them.
@dick? Amon Amarth definitely deserved a place.
@OllieDrew How the fuck do you hear Deicide for the first time on Roadrunner United? And this list was picked by a huge panel of voters. Congratulations.
Yeah, 60 voters, and 8 isn’t a big portion of 60, but it’s definitely the biggest demographic (for lack of a better word) and so they are the majority, but whatever.
Glen Benton sings on one of the tracks, Annihilation by the Hands of God. That track made me seek out some Deicide CD’s, and led me into Death Metal in general.
No arguments here. This could have been anywhere in the top three and been deserving. I would consider BWater one of top 5 albums I have ever heard in my life (metal or otherwise), and easily one of the most influential.
This list makes me feel like a 9th grader walking into Spencer’s for the first time, trying to pick out whatever trendy and popular metal is around to make me seem cool.
When i was in 9th grade, Spencers didn’t sell metal stuff. It was just dumb t-shirts with “The voices in my head don’t like you” written on them.
Which is basically the mindset of the drooling retards that are making this list.
ahahahahah !!! That was great. Well played. I pronounce it the most whimsicle gag of the season !!!
now we’re talking
I approve.
Finally.
Masterpiece.
Only two spots left.
#1 Mastodon- Leviathan
#2 The Haunted- The Dead Eye (probably not but it should be.)
didn’t care for dead eye as much as rEVOLVEr. haunted should make it in top 21, but not top 2.
(The Haunted) Made Me Do It steamrolls those mentioned. OKW is also quite good, but doesn’t have as much varity as previously mentioned
Must agree: (The Haunted) Made Me Do It is easily their best.
Truth being spoken here. After The Haunted Made Me Do It, everything else they’ve put out has been inconsistent and predictable.
Knew this would be up here great album changed my taste in music for the better
“furious blastbeats and 6/8 waltzes”
No blastbeats doofus. Comma. Great album. Comma. Fuck this list. Period.
do people really think that double bass = blast beats? a lot of people are really stupid.
apparently they are
I am one happy camper.
theres blast beats in this album? wut
Palaces better be number one. I’d love to see Ascendancy as #2 but that isn’t goting to happen, I’ll settle for CRACK THE SKYE.
Class!!!
i hope oden is reading this.
The fiance revealed to me that she owned a copy of blackwater park. I hate her less, suddenly.
LMAO, that’s good. Just last week I turned my wife onto type o negative’s “world coming down.” sent the kids to the grandparent’s house, turned out the lights, hung “do not disturb” on the front door… you get the idea.
later in the night she said “WTF was that music, it was perfect.” If you haven’t already, I suggest anyone to check it out when the mood is right.
Hahaha. You won’t believe this, but, I was doing online marketing for the Seventh Void album, which has two members from type-o, right. Well, I mentioned to my girlfriend how we started working this new band and so on, and mentioned that the two guys from type-o were in it, and she says: “oh my god, my aunt fucked one of them!!”
I just LOL at that one
Don’t forget ‘October Rust’ too. My favorite of theirs, and it plays well to the ladies, if you know what I mean.
Next Up:
-Leviathan
-Anything But Death Magnetic
Palaces is most definitely going to be #1. I’ll eat my hat, jeans, shirt and shoes if it’s not.
wheres cynic at assholes
Good music is NOT ALLOWED on this list.
Can someone please explain to me what makes Palaces better than Ashes?? Seems to me that Ashes has waaay more standout tracks.. Catchier but just as brutal… I like Palaces but seems to me that ashes is easily their best…
I agree.
agreed 100%, though it seems the metal “purists” prefer palaces for reasons of accessibility.
Metal purists actually hate everything about Lamb of God.
Metal purists hate just about everything now don’t they
ZING !!!!! My thoughts exactly.
Well, at least you can live in a Palace. And there is usually treasure and shit. Ashes…well, fire is fun, but Ashes are pretty boring. Yep, Palaces is definitely better than Ashes.
Palaces is considerably more technical, and the meaty production makes it a lot more pleasant to listen to. Ashes sounds really thin in comparison.
next two will be Mastodon and Papa Roach.
This album is fucking sweet. Opeth’s a funny one though. A lot of people find them way too cheesy. I find them epic as fuck.
I know I’m in the extreme minority, but goddamn Opeth bores me to tears.
Yup; me too.
Don’t tell Ziltoid.
Don’t tell Ziltoid? Why not…
Your have a point.
IMO, Opeth is best listened to as a complete work instead of just picking out singles. That having been said, I find myself usually listening to their albums (namely Ghost Reveries) on long drives or days at work when I can close the door to my office and hide out for an hour or two.
Forest metal of a genius nature.
FUCK SWEDEN IT IS THE HOME OF GAY MUSIC.
No Deliverance? Granted, there are still two to go, but the end riff of the title track destroys all other riffs by everybody from the past 20 years.
My predictions for #1 and #2 are Meshuggah and Mastodon (not necessarily in that order). Lamb of God? No thank you.
I really want to see Colors up there at the top.
I AM AGREEABLE TO THIS CHOICE
#1 will be God Hates Us All
#2 will be Tempo of the Damned
no it wont
yeaaaaaaa-no.
Yeah now that you mentioned it Tempo of the damned should be on here in my mind it brought thrash back in the 2000’s
ummm
PANTERA
Reinventing the mother fucking STEEL
released march 14th 2000….
Best metal album of all time
compared to their older albums that album isn’t nearly as good. i agree its a great album but…yeah dont expect it here.
that’s using the phrase ” best metal album of all time” quite liberally….um Far Beyond Driven, Great Southern Trendkill, Cowboys From Hell, Vulgar Display of Power….that makes it 5th in the list of great Pantera albums
I’ve never heard a single good Pantera album. But they’re quite good as drink coasters.
shit ziltoid, tell us how you really feel about Pantera..
I already went into detail as to why I hate Pantera in one of the other days of this list. It was quite a long post, and I’m far too lazy to find it. You go look for yourself if you care so much.
I don’t even use them as coasters. …the cds tend to reject anything that isn’t Busch Light.
Ugh. You just rattled off a list of the top 4 WORST albums of the 90’s, bar none.
It isn’t #1??? What. The. Fuck. The relevancy of this list has just been flushed down the toilet.
this whole list has been pretty much a ball of shit, what did you expect. So many great albums have been left in the dust in place of mainstream garbage.
Come on, Opeth? Opeth is the shittiest band in the universe. Akerfeldt plays the same riff over and over and over again in every song, they’re so repetitive and they rip off other bands. They’re boring and they’ve never written anything original in their lives. Oh and his vocals are terrible. Who the fuck screams AND sings? Only a pussy. Where’s the love for real serious complex music like Deathspell Omega and Wormplegm? That’s what real, adult metalheads listen to. People listen to shit like Opeth at the MALL. My dick can play guitar better than Mikael Akerfeldt.
I don’t like Opeth at all, but you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. I smell bullshit on you dickface.
“Our dicks can play guitar better than Mikael Akerfeldt”
now that is banner material
Should I ask how you hold your pick then?
Ow.
wow Dickface you live up to your name lol
Hehehe, I was actually just being a sarcastic dickface. Opeth fucking owns, I just noticed the lack of negative comments and thought “Hey, this is a thread on a metal forum! And no one’s talking shit! I’m gonna fix that!” April fools.
its julyfucktard :P
That’s irrelevant;
When ‘The Metal That Licks’(Metallica, duh) is posted as #1, I’m gonna call-in the air strike and that will be the end of everything.
Definitely a landmark metal album. However, in my very humble opinion, I preferred Deliverance to this, ever so slightly. Master’s Apprentices and the title track are both better than anything on BP. But hey, I’ll take it. It’s funny how a solid pick turns conversation from complete flames and arguments to “what do you think the next couple picks will be?” Haha…
Actually I was just thinking the same thing today when I was blaring some of Masters Apprentices on my way to work. The vocal thing he does in the beginning where it is more of a black metal rasp is so awesome
Finally one i agree with.
ditto.
MOAR DREAM THEATER ;)
where the fuck is prowler in the yard?
agreed on the Pig Destroyer. Prowler rules. At least Phantom Limb…and no Dream Theater
If Blood Mountain is on here I don’t see how Crack the Skye could not be. CtS>BM, everyone agrees with this. Only reason I can see for CtS not being on here someone mentioned before about people not hearing it before the list was made. Though you sort of have to assume the people that voted are in the know enough to have heard it before its release by a month or so.
#2 Crack the Skye
#1 Leviathan
Judas Priest – Angel of Retribution
The last chance to redeem this list is now wasted by placing this masterpiece on #3. What a horrendous debacle this came out to be.
I HAVE ENDED MY HIATUS!
The other albums were just so bad that I was too bored to comment on them. Really, KSE? LoG? Yawn. More shitty metalcore. Not fun for discussion.
But BWP is a good album. Not on my list, but certainly an album deserving of its status (both popularity and respect).
Log isn’t metalcore.
They’re basically a combo of groove metal and metalcore. Two of the worst metal subgenres wrapped up all into one horrible band.
Metal-archives is my metal bible too…
M-A isn’t even needed in this case. IF you can’t hear the metalcore and the Pantera influences, then you have problems.
scoffed when you previously said LOG was groove metal. while i don’t agree 100%, i can say that after watching the ashes dvd, i really noticed the groove elements on several tracks. reminded me of another groove release i enjoyed, “the infection,” but the LOG was just faster at times
I agree on metalcore being one of the worst but I’ll take groove over power metal any day of the week. Power represents the complete cheesiness of metal in all of its awfulness. Its as gimmicky and predictable as metalcore.
Most power metal is predictable and cheesy, but the good stuff is really good. Just check out Imaginations from the Other Side. That’s an amazing power metal album, and although it’s a bit cheesy (hey, what do you expect from Blind Guardian), everything is executed perfectly, and they mix the heaviness with the cheesiness very well.
I cannot recall any groove metal being even remotely good.
what the fuck is wrong with groove metal? are you saying Pantera sucks as well?
Yes, I am. Everything is wrong with groove metal. I have explained this in one of the other topics, so go find my detailed explanation of why Pantera (and by extension, groove metal) is horrible.
I actually agree. I can’t get into groove metal AT ALL.
goddamnit you’re a fucking douche
Welcome back, good sir.
Haha, glad to see that you missed me.
most good metal is progressive. i mean that the complexity of the music transcends its marketing, song structures and emotional invocations vary, and there is a narrative scope to the artistry.
defining genres too strictly short-changes groove metal. i took a glance at the groove metal list at metal arhcives– just to consider a citeable source. gojira is on there: good stuff. but why not voivod? or even nachtmystium?
groove metal is used as a scapre-goat genre. pantera is considered to be the originator and the peak of the genre, and anyone who goes beyond their formula is slapped with a different label. what i mean is: once you get good, youre no longer groove metal. meanwhile, good power metal bands are still called power metal.
for example, meshuggah is listed as strictly ‘technical post-thrash’. the vastly inferior blind guardian gets speed metal as well as power/progressive. you know what i find when i search ‘groove/progressive metal’? one band. romanian. the reverse nets only another twelve. ‘progressive/power’ and its vise versa yield hundreds.
i dont wish to jerk off one website any further, but the point is that if you rely on any so-called objective source– including believing yourself to be one– you can write off whole genres, and get stuck in some stupid ideal that blinds you to novel genius. if you consider the intent and the power of the music itself, you might see that the somewhat lame pantera was achieving something great, something that meshuggah and gojira made into music worth listening to.
lets pitch this on another level. i will agree that power metal can be good even though dream theater sucks…if you will admit groove metal can be good if you stretch its boundaries beyond pantera.
i was drunk when i posted this, so i wasnt able to write succinctly (and i was able to enjoy rambling on at length), but i stand behind the point. just as i stand behind you, our pants around our ankles.
This album is pretty overrated
It shouldn’t be number three, maybe lower on the list.
This BAND is overrated.
How are they overrated?
everone on here has Opeth’s cocks rammed so far up their asses, that splooge is oozing out of their noses
I think this is a very good album, but I agree that there seems to be a strange “Opeth can do no wrong” mentality amongst posters here.
We take Opeth’s cocks up our asses because they’re awesome. What more is there?
LOL
Do you wanna felch it Daddy?
Pretty much yeah Opeth is overrated
(BTW idk if you did it on purpose but both our names are Melvin albums)
ITT: Melvins fans hating on Opeth
Translation: Nothing to see here folks, move along.
I’m amazed at the other 4 melvins fan in the world have came to my side on this. Im not really hating on Opeth, just saying what needs to be said, This band is overrated. There’s better Progressive Metal bands out there.
What do you mean?
Who are the Melvins?
How do you expect a person with Melvinated-OCD to like the shit-with-blood-in-it that is Opeth?
I don’t care who or how many rip on (the) Melvins.
They can take comfort in knowing that I will always have all of their albums playing simultaneously in my head at all times.
Though I have Mothra/ Dyes pumping as I type this, but that’s because they sorta sound like (the)Melvins….
lol
(If you dont know about The Melvins you wont get it)
(the) Melvins have 4 other fans in the world?
That’s fucking great news!
I hate it when a band I dig/love/fetish gets popular.
It’s almost as if they are all mine…
Nawww an overrated band would be Mastodon.
Yeah, I gotta agree.
The big hoopla about Crackpipe inThe Skye; it isn’t that great. The vocals suck big-time.
I DO like Remission, though, ’cause parts of it sound alot like Melvins.
Ok, the overload of Melvins fans is getting weird
Opeth are overrated, as are Mastodon however i did enjoy Crack The Skye. I have not enjoyed an Opeth album since My Arms, Your Hearse
However, I will admit that Mastodon’s cocks are up my ass big time. I’m a Mastodon cock whore.
The post dosesnt do this album justics. And wheres the Drappery Falls mention????? The only album which possibly deserved its place here, even though it should be #1. Still, #3 is good. Ghost Reveries should b lower and shit like Converge should be removed from existence, let alone this list.
Puppets and Number of
Always is
Please close your eyes, and jump into the 21st century, Anthoni.
i’m sure both of those were reissued during the 21st century so to him they weren’t released in the 80s, and are as new as ever.. wait til he hears “And Justice For All”, and Piece of Mind..he’ll be blown away…don’t tell him Cliff died though, let him find out on his own
New born of osiris in 3 days!! now that should be number one
Lulz
This list really needs Meshuggah.
Many of us agree; Nothing and Obzen have both been mentioned countless times.
Hell, one poster even offered money to make it happen. But being a realist; I doubt if this is going to happen.
There’s probably only 1 potential spot left, as I’m convinced one of the two will be that steaming turd from Metallica.
I hope the steaming turd is St. Anger in the #1 spot, just for the hilarity that would ensue.
BONK BONK BONK BONK!
list needs Traced In Air. probably one of the best albums i have heard in a long LONG time
I completely agree. Easily one of my favorite albums of the century, and possibly all time.
But of course, it isn’t going to happen.
‘Traced in Air’ was on a tiny record label, therefore 90% of the judges here probably didn’t receive a free copy. At least, that’s how I’m gonna justify their omission from this list.
If they end up on here after all, I’ll apologize profusely. But with how most of this list has gone down, I think it’s pretty safe to say it won’t show up.
“There is no metal band that traverses the chasm between beauty and brutality as confidently as Sweden’s Opeth”
This reminds me of the smashing good time I had at Progressive Nation last year when the keyboardist was headbanging through their entire set.
I have seen a lot of shows in my 32 years of existence but that was a the first time I laughed like a little girl in public instead of sitting at home watching reruns of family guy on Hulu.
A completely overrated band, and why the hell is Mike Portnoy up this bands ass all the time?
By the way, the only decent bands on this list are Mastodon and Gojira…come on guys…KSE???!!!! LOG??!! give me a break.
i would like this list better if bands could only be on the list once.
1. Meshuggah – Nothing
2. BTBAM – Colors
the meshuggah was more influential than anything else they’ve done, even though i think both catch 33 and obzen were overall better albums. i would be really surprised not to see at least one meshuggah album on the list.
btbam i’m less confident about because they’re not as popular but the album definitely deserves to be there too.
on second thought, i think we’re going to see a tie between the unspoken king and death magnetic.
“6/8 waltzes”. They ain’t waltzes and they’re really in 12/8.
“Blackwater Park represented Opeth’s “Ah-ha!” moment” — Also represents my “ah ha!” moment for “getting” Opeth and really digging it.
Colors? Meh. It’s just a clever amalgamation of styles — Dream Theater’s virtuosic prog (including the wacky hipster “interludes”) with cookie monster vocals — that doesn’t really do anything remarkably new.
Nothing? Sure, ok. If the list absolutely must have Meshuggah. Their best album is still DEI though.
I’d rather Listen to Slumber or Daylight Dies rather than anything from Opeth.
Where the hell are bands like Sigh and Insomnium on this list?
Perhaps they should have renamed it ” the 21 most circulated bands played on headbangers ball list”.
That’s cool if you don’t like Opeth…BUT:
1. Blackwater Park is no fucking MTV album
2. They opened the door for all those shitty bands you’ve just mentioned.
It all well and good if you feel the need to defend a band, but bashing other bands like Sigh, Insomnium, and Daylight Dies is just moronic.
Gee…you got me there, honestly though, the point I was trying to make is that there should be a more diverse group of bands on this list such as INSOMNIUM, SIGH and DAYLIGHT DIES, soooo…the only moronic issue is that you failed to read my post correctly.
It’s ok, I forgive you.
Strep, you misunderstand. If you look closely, you will see my reply was actually to what sYgnal said. Lay off the booze!!!
@glenn: your mom represents my ‘ah-ha’ moment.
This list should have Meshuggah since it appears to be a “scene” list.
WTF??? Where Is Metallica, Pantera or Slayer……I’m fucking confused!!!!!!!
really you’re confused…well let’s help you then..1 Pantera only released one album in the 21st century “Reinventing the Steel” while it’s decent does not belong on this list. 2 Metallica hasn’t released anything good in the 21st century so we’ll end that discussion there. 3 God Hates us All and Christ Illusion had their moments, but once again do not belong on this list..wait a minute half the albums on this list don’t belong on this list…yeah where is Slayer?? lol
I am glad to see Opeth well represented on this list!
They are indeed amazing…
Maybe Still Life and Watershed will finish up this list!
I have a very good fwiend in Wome named Biggus Dickus !!!
Still Life was released in 1999…. ie, does not qualify for the list, even though it is their best.
Indeed….no more booze for me.
I hate all these bands except for Mastodon.
I predict that Slipknot’s All Hope Is Gone is gonna be in the top 2. Along with either Palaces or Leviathan.