Blackwater Park by Opeth
Blackwater Park is the fifth studio album by Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth. It was released on February 27, 2001 through Music for Nations and Koch Records. The album marks the first collaboration between Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson and the band, as Wilson had been brought in to produce the album, which led to a considerable shift in Opeth's musical style. Blackwater Park did not chart in North America or the United Kingdom. The album had two singles released from it: "The Drapery Falls" and "Still Day Beneath the Sun". Blackwater Park was highly acclaimed on its initial release and has been praised by critics, with Eduardo Rivadavia of Allmusic stating that the album is "surely the band's coming-of-age album, and therefore, an ideal introduction to its remarkable body of work."
With their fifth album, Sweden’s Opeth redefined what death metal can be. Marrying technical metal with shimmering acoustic passages and vocals both harsh and clean, <i>Blackwater Park</i> is a boldly crafted epic. “Harvest” and “Patterns in the Ivy” confirm songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt a master of subtlety, with sweet harmonies over gentle guitar. The dense metal dynamics of “The Drapery Falls” and soaring 12-minute title track, which jumps from brutal riffage to atmospheric fingerpicking, prove Opeth’s prog metal power is all in the journey.
