Well, the time has come to venture into sacred territory.
Blackwater Park was my introduction to the unique Swedes. It was back in the distant year of 2001, and I was simply in shock — I couldn't recover for a long time from this upheaval called OPETH, sinking ever deeper into the dark forests of Orchid, Morningrise, My Arms Your Hearse, and Still Life, wandering through them day and night. I couldn't find words to describe what was happening — emotions consumed all my inner strength, and I couldn't write a single proper word about this music. That forest clearing where I first glimpsed the "Moon City" in a clear night sky simply occupies a special place in my heart.
Perhaps not much has changed since then, but after several hundred listens one begins to approach things more pragmatically and rationally.
Whatever anyone may say, there is no dilution of ideas or creative thought happening with OPETH.
On the contrary, after the somewhat straightforward My Arms Your Hearse and in contrast to the deliberately progressive and at times convoluted Still Life, Blackwater Park is a very balanced album, both in structure and content. The collaboration with Steven Wilson — a musician and composer well known in art rock circles — proved to be that weight on the scales, that missing piece that brought harmony to the band's creative process. And the result of this collaboration was 9 magnificent tracks, each so different yet so kindred — 9 pieces of a unique mosaic in OPETH's body of work. The powerful "The Leper Affinity" with its keyboard revelation at the end; the classically OPETH-esque "Bleak," "The Drapery Falls," and "The Funeral Portrait"; the diamond-like "Harvest" and "Patterns in the Ivy"; the sepulchral "Dirge For November"; and the monumental "Blackwater Park." A separate mention must go to the artwork. Here Travis Smith, god of digits and pixels, comes closer than ever to a complete fusion of the visual and musical components.
Blackwater Park can be assessed and perceived in different ways, but it simply cannot be overlooked.