Opeth - In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall (2010)^{Release ID: 47179}

2 hours and 45 minutes live album. I have to start with this to explain why I can't give this a higher rating. I love Opeth, being one of my favorite progressive metal bands of all time honestly. Especially Blackwater Park which is covered in full and is still really good here. Then they add a song from every album from Orchid to Watershed with some really solid choices such as Advent and Harlequin forest. Remember this is a live album, and 2 hours and 45 minutes. 

This was probably an absolutely amazing show to attend, but I personally am not a fan of listening to live albums. This is not a terrible recording by any means, the venue sounds well mic'd and the soundscape of the room holds up well enough but this isn't my jam. For a live album, it is one of the best I have heard in that regard, many are terribly novelties with bad acoustics and too much echo or crowd noise. The crowd here is noticeable at points, but don't take away from the music being played. Mikael does some crowd work explaining how happy he is to be performing there and explaining why they're there and he has some good charisma and I enjoyed listening to his bits and happy they got to do this. Felt nice and perfect blend for a show of this magnitude for them, wasn't overly preachy but got the point across for the crowd. Some bands talk too much, others don't talk at all which can be even more awkward but this felt just right. 

If you're into live albums, this is absolutely worth it because it does that well. I on the other hand would rather be there, then hear most live recordings when the original Blackwater Park album is right there. I understand this is in two parts with the first half being Blackwater Park and the rest being a single song from other albums but I still had to break this up into 4 different listening sessions to get through it. 2 hours and 45 minutes. I like to listen to my albums in one go, I can't do this here and unfortunately there's really nothing here for me that stands out enough for me to not just go back to the original album versus the live album. Good for a one off, and again one of the better live albums I've heard but I won't be going back to this. 

Mikael Åkerfeldt is known as a true hero in progressive rock/metal. He and his band Opeth have stunned the world with their sound at least 25 years after Tony Iommi and Black Sabbath had done the same with their pioneered heavy metal sound. He has lead the band through a journey made by his creations of haunting riffs and melodies through great largely arranged compositions. Like many progressive bands, Opeth never hesitates to push themselves beyond their boundaries. If people think of Tony Iommi as an Iron Man, Mike is a kick-A Man of Steel!

2010 was the year that marked Opeth's 20th anniversary. I'm still stunned by how my appeal for progressive metal is drifting away. I mean, one month I was rocking out to the heaviness of Opeth, and the next month, I'm like "Opeth who?" I'm f***ing losing my Infinite touch! However, after a positive revisiting experience with Between the Buried and Me's Colors Live, I thought it would be a good time to redeem myself, by reviewing this album with a similar idea to that BTBAM live album. Opeth's 20th anniversary tour shows the band performing 5 special concerts, this one in the Royal Albert Hall, London, being documented in this mighty live release. They play their entire "Blackwater Park" to celebrate that breakthrough album from 2001, then after an intermission, their second set consists of 8 more songs, one from each Opeth album at that time.

Beginning the Blackwater Park set with heaviness crashing in is "The Leper Affinity". Then "Bleak" takes the deathly heaviness further alongside the progressive complexity. Deathly riffs and growling are in perfect equal contrast with clean melodies and singing. The rhythms and textures help keep the atmosphere in place. It shows a difference from an earlier album like Morningrise, having a more complete structure in under 10 minutes without combining a few songs into one. "Harvest" is a soft pleasant break from the dark deathliness of those first two tracks. Next song "The Drapery Falls" I still haven't forgotten as a melodic and heavy deathly progressive metal classic epic!

Things get a bit stretchy in "Dirge for November". That's too bad, because I used to think of that song as an impressive one, but listening to it now, the two-minute outro sounds anticlimactic and far-fetched. Those two minutes might just be a small spark of eliminating part of my Infinite interest. "The Funeral Portrait" strikes again with some decent deathly chaos. Despite a bit of repetition, that can be brushed aside by how dynamic the track is! "Patterns in the Ivy" is a great melodic moody interlude. The epic title finale, "Blackwater Park" continues the complex structure, adding in some of the later rhythm atmosphere. All I'm gonna note is how majestic the ending is, when the band unleash all their power before hitting the brakes in a bang.

After the intermission, the band re-enter the stage with their second set, beginning with "Forest of October" that has melodies of beauty and sorrow from one of the band's most memorable earlier compositions. The song is quite d*mn long at 13 minutes, but what makes those long epics superb is, there are some different emotions in different sections, all ranging from aggressive brutality to acoustic melancholy. One of my favorite Opeth songs and perhaps my second favorite in this release (behind "The Drapery Falls")! Heading into the Morningrise album, "Advent" kicks things off with swift riffing that then leads straight from dissonant to elegant. As usual, the blend of cleans and growls add to the progressive instrumentation and structure. And there's more progressiveness abound as the moods continue to twist. The riffing is never super repetitive, but each time they appear allows to relive the scene in a pleasant tone. An explosion into heaviness that begins "April Ethereal" can sound as beautiful as it is dark. You can already hear where the evolution the band took from the first two albums while having the usual brutal growls and riffs mixed with the melancholic cleans and acoustics that many of the songs in the band's metal albums have. "The Moor" opened what was my favorite Opeth album besides Blackwater Park, Still Life, perfectly with a two-minute intro. This live rendition starts with the section right after that, when some brief acoustics are blasted away by the electric guitar density. The riffing from that epic is some of the best I've ever heard from this band.

"Wreath" is one of the greatest examples of Opeth's aggressive side. It sounds like a lost outtake from Orchid, with more flow in riffing and movements. The haunting song "Hope Leaves" is one of the saddest I've heard to not be doom metal. "Harlequin Forest" provides strong imagery. The music sounds great from the start, but it has the same repetition problem "Dirge for November" has. The execution in "The Lotus Eater" is a bit awkward, thus ending this mostly awesome show somewhat poorly in my opinion.

Any Opeth fan should own this, especially if they want to hear some amazing highlights from the band's metal era including the entire Blackwater Park album. Almost every song is in top-notch quality and still strong within me, so I don't have to feel like a d*ck in the progressive metal community. This live album is an essential taste of Opeth!

Favorites: "Bleak", "The Drapery Falls", "The Funeral Portrait", "Blackwater Park", "Forest of October", "Advent", "The Moor", "Wreath"