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Watershed
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Price: $11.98
Price subject to change!
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To view Amazon.com's best price click on the above link. Please note that you are under no obligation to buy. If you decide to add your selection of "Watershed" to your Amazon shopping cart. You may then return to 80s Metal.com to shop for additional hard rock & metal music or continue shopping at Amazon.com.
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0016861793623
Format: Enhanced
Label: Roadrunner Records
Manufacturer: Roadrunner Records
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Roadrunner Records
Release Date: 2008-06-03
Studio: Roadrunner Records
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Another Sweet Opeth Journey
Comment: This album is sweet. If you like Opeth, you must have it. It seems like Opeth can't produce a bad album. I am more than pleased after buying and hearing anything from Opeth. I have My Arms, Your Hearse, Blackwater Park, Still Life, Deliverance, and Ghost Reveries in addition to Watershed. Everything you have come to love about Opeth is here on this album, but it manages to sound original throughout. There are several really neat audio effects used sparingly and effectively to enhance their sound. I have come to really appreciate the contrast between the clean light vocals and the death vocals. It is extreme, but not out of place. Everything fits. And boy can they be heavy. They'll blow your doors off. Excellent work here, and worthy of all five stars. Get it and see for yourself.
Customer Rating:
Summary: stunning album from a great band
Comment: Opeth is, for all intent and purposes, Mikael Akerfeldt, the guitarist and vocalist of one of rock's most versatile and brilliant bands, regardless of genre. Yes, Opeth got its start as death metal, but it's so much more. "Watershed" is more tuneful than "Blackwater Park", the classic Opeth CD. There's more singing, and only a little grunting, which is good, because Akerfeldt has such a great voice.
Opeth aren't afraid to put lots of classic rock and even classical music touches in its stew. One can hear strains of heavy Pink Floyd at one point, blazing guitar riffing and soloes, and even flutes and strings. Most amazing of all, it all works. No single track outshines another - "Watershed" is a masterwork that must be taken in whole.
One metal website apologized for awarding Opeth 10 stars, its maximum, while describing them. That writer simply felt that this band was so good it was off the scales. I'm inclined to agree. Opeth is incredible.
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 Ã…kesson (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.
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: Not up to previous works
Comment: I love Opeth, but this album somehow looks like the work of some cover band, and not a good one... The fact is that I was not able to connect with this album. The songs did not work well and, of course, are not in the same league with what they did in their previous albums. Some good moments, and that's all. Not recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Exactly what I expected
Comment: This album doesn't fail to please. If you liked Deliverance and Blackwater Park, then you will like Watershed. Brutally heavy riffs, plenty of melody, and of course, excellent musicianship. Exactly what I've come to expect from Opeth.
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Editorial Reviews:
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2008 album from the forward-thinking Swedish titans, who seemlessly and fluidly combine Metal, Classic Rock, Prog, Folk and Free Form Jazz. 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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