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List Price: $24.98
Our Price: $22.99
You Save: $ 1.99 (8%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Roadrunner Records
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0016861793654
Format: Enhanced
Label: Roadrunner Records
Manufacturer: Roadrunner Records
Number Of Discs: 2
Publisher: Roadrunner Records
Release Date: 2008-06-03
Studio: Roadrunner Records
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Special Edition includes three bonus tracks, 5.1 audio mix of the entire album, extensive video content, expanded artwork and more.Special Edition includes DVD with bonus tracks. The forward-thinking Swedish titans, who seemlessly and fluidly combine metal, classic rock, prog, folk and free form jazz, continue the time-honored Opeth tradition on Watershed, their second album for Roadrunner Records. With this, their ninth effort, Opeth continue to shake things up, turn the corner and push the limits of their sound. And the results are breathtaking. Ultimately, Watershed sounds at once completely like and absolutely nothing like previous Opeth records. Watershed takes all that is Opeth, and goes where Opeth have never gone before.
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| Spotlight customer reviews: |
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Customer Rating:
Summary: So far, Watershed is the best album of 2008!
Comment: Opeth's last release, Ghost Reveries, was named top album of 2005 by many sites across the internet. This time, Opeth is back with 2008 release Watershed, and a lot of expectations from the fans. Watershed features new guitarist Fredrik Åkesson (Arch Enemy) and new drummer Martin "Axe" Axenrot, who's been filling in for Martin Lopez since the Reverie tours.
Throughout their career Opeth has been notorious for diversity while maintaining a distinctive style of music, and Watershed proves that Opeth has not lost their golden touch.
Watershed begins with beautiful, "Coil." Coil is a soft and tranquil song with a soothing twelve-string and nylon acoustic touch with layers of keyboards. Mike sings very melodic on Coil and brought in Axe's girlfriend Nathalie Lorichs as a guest vocalist on the song to add a more refining touch. Coil is on the shorter side, just over three minutes in length, but it's a very pretty song and a wonderful addition into the Opeth song catalog.
As always, Opeth paves the way from melodic transitions into heart stopping, death metalesque styles of music. "Heir Apparant" is roughly nine minutes of epic Opeth metal without melodic vocals, but the diversity comes from some dark acoustic interludes and a slide guitar solo. Heir Apparant is dark, brutal and probably the heaviest song they've written since "Wreath" the Deliverance album.
Enter "The Lotus Eater" as track number three. The Lotus Eater is the perfect display of Opeth's diversity and progressive nature packed into a nine minute song. This song has wonderful solos, heavy blast beat drumming, lots of death growls, but the song balances out with melodic guitar and vocal work, some jazz twists and a mellotron solo. Simply put, this song is amazing and a pleasure to enjoy.
A note to all of those progressive rock fans out there: don't feel as if Opeth's neglecting you with Watershed. Instead, it's quite the opposite. "Burden" comes to Watershed as a little homage to the mid 70's Scorpions style ballads. This song has it all for the musicians. Burden starts off with a keys intro and leads into full band accompaniment with Mike's melodic vocals. The simplicity of the melody on Burden allows for countless guitar solos (about: four at the end, concluding with a harmony arrangement and three lead guitars over vocals melodies throughout the song) a keyboard solo and amazing guitar and vocal harmonies.
If there was a weakness to Watershed, it's definitely here with "Porcelain Heart." Honestly, this song is way too long at eight minutes. Porcelain Heart rehashes up some of the riffs from Ghost Reverie's "The Grand Conjuration." But to add fuel to the fire, this song feels like it was a copy and paste job through Pro Tools (recording software). This is a very pretty song, with only clean tone vocals over lots of nylon guitar work. Porcelain Heart also has its heavy moments and plenty of double bass drumming, but the song just feels jumbled and a bit too long. Personally, I feel the five minute radio/music video edit of Porcelain Heart should have been the album version.
"Hessian Peel" is definitely the hardest song to portray in words. It's nearly a twelve minutes epic, with lots of progressive transitions. Starting off with a bass note drone, leading into some bluesy riffs and a wonderful melodic feel, Hessian Peel transists into a death metal segment back into a beautiful acoustic segment only to finish heavy and drop into a bass guitar and keyboard finale. This is definitely a must hear song to any Opeth fan or newbie getting into the band.
"Hex Omega" is a wonderful song that's perfect for closing out the album. Dark, eerie and proggy, Hex Omega seems to be the least memorable song on the album, but it has this great vibe to it.
Bonus content: Since this album comes with the two-disc CD and DVD edition, there's some wonderful additions to the album. First, a 5.1 mix of the album is included on the DVD disc. The mix is a lot better than Ghost Reverie's 5.1 and Dream Theater's 5.1 Systematic Chaos; however, if anyone has an SACD player or a DVD-A (MLP lossless) player, the 5.1 mix here doesn't compare to the higher resolution mixes. If you're looking for perfection, pick up Porcupine Tree's Lightbulb Sun, Stupid Dream or Fear of a Blank Planet on DVD-A and get a player capable of handling the format! Back to the Watershed 5.1 mix, it's clean, the panning is done well, but it is missing the punch that a great 5.1 mix should have.
Three extra songs are also included. First is "Derelict Heards." This song should have made the album cut and fell between Burden and Porcelain Heart. It's a very pretty song at times and has great transitions into death metal segments. Similar to The Lotus Eater, Derelict Heards definitely shows off Opeth's musicianship and song writing capabilities. Second is the Robin Trower cover, "Bridge of Sighs." This is an amazing cover, true to the original and done with an Opeth vibe. Third is a second cover song, "Den Ständiga Resan." This song is wonderful, but spoken all in Swedish. Den Ständiga Resan is a beautiful acoustic ballad with a few great blues solos.
Overall, this Opeth - Watershed is a must have album for any progressive metal fan. As of now, it's still my pick for album of 2008 and is the perfect follow up to Opeth's last release Ghost Reveries. Check it out, Watershed is a must hear!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: opeth descent
Comment: this cd shows the clear descent taken by the band after lopez quit, and after the highpoint reached with the incredible ghost reveries. axe is limited.. period..
akerfeldt's songwriting switched accordingly to more basic songs, mostly ballads
Customer Rating:
Summary: I enjoy this
Comment: This album from Opeth is quite amazing in my opinion. They have successfully merged many different genres of music into one beautifully eclectic album. The balance between instruments is done to perfection. I was really shocked how different the songs sound when played in DTS on the bonus disc. If you don't plan on utilizing the 5.1 version of this album, I would suggest getting the regular version opposed to the special edition. The three bonus tracks were nice, but no surprise to me that they were not part of the main release.
Customer Rating:
Summary: OPETH RULES!!!
Comment: Even with the replacement of the drummer and lead guitarist, Opeth has retained its unique sound in death metal. This new album is amazing and I think its incredible for a band to have an awesome 9th album. You will not be dissappointed
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great album
Comment: Another good one out by Opeth. These guys have never disappointed yet, although their overall sound is definitely taking a different direction; perhaps aided by the re-shuffling of band members. Regardless of sonic changes, Opeth continues to do what they do best: putting out creative, meaningful, and (of course) enjoyable music.
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