This is a strange release, or re-release in fact of Opeth’s “Lamentations” dvd in album form, especially given that the albums “Deliverance” (2002) and “Damnation” (2003) from which most of this double album comes, were themselves re-released as a double album last year. Live albums are always strange, as I would associate them with visual and other experiences, which you wouldn’t get on a cd or vinyl. I’ve seen Opeth a few times and it’s always been memorable. One of them was in March 2003 at the Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth, about six months before “Lamentations” was filmed. The Gosport lads and the townies got into a big fight in the mosh pit, resulting in most of the audience being chucked out. This resulted in a classic comment from Mikael Akerfeldt as he introduced the then obligatory encore “Demons of the Fall”: “The room is empty now. There’s more space to be insane in”.
An interesting aspect of this double offering is Akerfeldt’s presentation and his engagement with the audience. Between songs there are uncomfortable silences, with occasional shrieking from the crowd, and the words of Akerfeldt. This amounts to asking the audience rhetorically whether they’re enjoying it, hoping that they do, thanking them graciously, swearing a bit, introducing the songs as mellow or heavy or, in the case of “The Drapery Falls”, somewhere in between, and the odd quip: “I hope we don’t make too many fuck-ups”, when referring to the fact that the show is being filmed. I wouldn’t recommend this album on the basis of the introductions, but not only are there no fuck-ups, the material takes us to another, higher level. The fact that it is live means there are fewer Steven Wilson influenced sound subtleties on songs like “Deliverance”, but the accentuation of the instruments is what you’d hope for from a live performance. It’s noticeable from the beginning that there’s more bass and the drums are clearer. It’s the same top quality song structures and atmospheres, which come from an Opeth golden era. Personally, I always preferred “Deliverance” to “Damnation” but I have to say that here I got to appreciate “Damnation” more. On “Lamentations”, I was more struck by the fact that it’s moody, shadowy, edgy and in fact heavier than the wholly mellow production that even Akerfeldt makes it out to be. It’s utterly compelling even though I knew every track and they’re delivered in the order of the album, with the exception of the insertion of “Harvest”, which fits perfectly into the pre-announced mellow spectrum. At the same time the exploitation of sound is there, and in particular there’s a mystical passage on “Closure” which I didn’t end. “Ending Credits” is just that: a song which has a kind of film score element, which Akerfeldt neatly describes as a rip-off of a Camel track. I’m sure he’s right. He’s certainly right that just because a track is mellow does not mean that it cannot be utterly dark, a comment he makes when introducing “To Rid the Disease”. Listening to “Damnation” was a pleasure, even though I’ve heard it countless times. So too was the second part, which features three songs from “Deliverance” and two from “Blackwater Park” (2001). “The Leper Affinity” is the essence of “Blackwater Park” for me, with its typically epic heaviness, but the most memorable of the five songs for me is “Deliverance”. I shared the audience’s anticipation of the drum-led passage, which takes us through the latter stages. Akerfeldt identifies “Deliverance” as one of the band’s heaviest productions, and it’s true but the skill of Opeth is here too in that growled heaviness is mixed with delicacy, melancholic darkness, recycled transformations and superb delivery.
If you already have “Deliverance” and “Damnation”, I couldn’t really recommend this as an important addition to your collection. Again, if you’re interested in the three tracks from “Blackwater Park”, you’re better off buying that album. I have the original “Lamentations” hard copy dvd and although I don’t really use that media now, I wouldn’t see this as a replacement. All this said, it’s a classic collection of atmospheric, mellow and heavy Opeth moments, and it’s always a great pleasure to be swept along by progressive death metal of this quality and originality.
(7/10 Andrew Doherty)
Leave a Reply