Ryan Reviews: Still Life (1999) by Opeth
Opeth is arguably the most celebrated progressive metal band of all-time. Formed in 1990, the band spent the first half of the 90s finding their footing before releasing their first full-length record in 1995, Orchid. While Orchid was a notable start, 1996’s Morningrise sparked an era that saw the band go on an unprecedented eight-album run of absolute excellence that lasted over a decade. While 2001’s Blackwater Park is often seen as their pinnacle, 1999’s Still Life is an equally impressive record and one of the most stunning metal records in existence.
After Orchid, the band’s sound began to evolve, getting more progressive and diverse on Morningrise and becoming more polished, tight and disciplined on 1998’s My Arms, Your Hearse. However, Opeth would fine-tune their signature sound on Still Life, and would perfect the formula that would define four of their next five albums, which essentially carved the band’s legacy and are considered their finest work. Still Life and these subsequent albums featured a hybrid of progressive metal, death metal, and progressive rock, featuring a healthy mix of clean vocals and growls.
Still Life is a perfect mixture of excellent songwriting, vivid and emotional storytelling, fabulous musicianship, and diverse guitar work. The band often switches from brutally heavy riffing over ruthless drumming to slow, cerebral, and at times peaceful passages in just a matter of a few seconds, which is a main component of their catalogue. For the album, lead guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Mikael Akerfeldt, guitarist Peter Lindgren and drummer Martin Lopez brought in Martin Mendez on bass and established the lineup that would dominate the rest of Opeth’s peak years.
Lyrically, the album follows the story of an anti-religious villager returning to his hometown for the first time in years after being exiled for his beliefs, attempting to reconcile with his love interest from whom he was separated when he was banished. The villagers recognize what he is doing and realize the danger of his agnostic beliefs. They murder his love interest, leading him to retaliate by unleashing a bloody attack against those responsible. He is then captured and given a chance to repent. He refuses, so he is executed and sent to his lover in the afterlife.
The emotion of the story is complemented perfectly with Akerfeldt, Lindgren, Mendez and Lopez’s soundscapes. The album opens with “The Moor”, one of the band’s finest compositions, which kicks off with a creepy, dissonant passage that evolves into a series of heavy riffs, featuring melodic guitar work and a wall of double-bass and blastbeats from Lopez. In typical Opeth fashion, the song alternates between growls and clean vocals, and features a beautiful, folk-rock passage near the song’s end before switching back to one of the main riffs. The story of the protagonist begins as he returns to his home village after being exiled, looking for his love interest who he was separated from upon exile.
Before you know it, eleven and a half minutes have passed, and “Godhead’s Lament” comes in with yet another mix of growls and clean vocals, and walls of melodic death metal riffs and heavy drumming which give way to a stunning acoustic guitar passage around the four-minute mark. If I have one knock on the first two tracks, it’s that they tend to run together a bit — this is not uncommon for certain stretches of Opeth albums and is probably my biggest criticism of the band as a whole. The story continues here with the protagonist realizing that the villagers are onto him, so he goes into hiding as he looks for his lover, who has now become a nun.
While Opeth is known for seamlessly mixing intelligently-written heavy and soft passages, the band is also celebrated for songs exclusively displaying their softer side. While this soft side essentially makes up their entire discography from 2011’s Heritage onward (though not of the same quality), they’ve been doing this since the 90s. The record’s third track, “Benighted”, features Akerfeldt’s softer side on display with a perfectly-constructed acoustic song: “Benighted” serves as a quick reprieve, giving a listener a chance to catch their breath. Story-wise, the villager finally meets up with his love interest, and tries his best to convince her to abandon her non-secular lifestyle and go away with him.
“Moonlapse Vertigo” opens with one of Opeth’s best riffs, a melodic-yet-dissonant electric guitar passage that leads into a switch between an anxious, clean vocal-driven verse before going into a brutal chorus where Akerfeldt belts out some incredibly guttural growls. The song swirls on over nine minutes of top-notch riffing and wonderful musicianship. As the story’s protagonist realizes he is now being targeted by the villagers, he hides in the village’s castle before deciding to attempt an escape with his love interest.
“Face of Melinda” is a song that was once the backdrop to a rough period in my life, one that would ultimately end happily. Perhaps I am biased because of this, but I believe this is one of Opeth’s most emotional and thoughtful songs. There is a recurring acoustic passage through the verse that I would rank among my top 50 favorite moments in music. Elements of folk rock return here and bring Still Life even more of that amazing duality that defined peak-era Opeth. From a lyrical standpoint, the protagonist meets again with his love, named Melinda, who denies his advances, but admits that she still loves him. Akerfeldt paints a vivid picture of the situation and of Melinda herself:
“By the turnstile beckons a damsel fair,
The face of Melinda neath blackened hair
No joy would flicker in her eyes,
Brooding sadness came to a rise
Words would falter to atone,
Failure had passed the stepping stone
She had sworn her vows to another,
This is when no one will bother”
The first half of the song is purely acoustic; the second half features Akerfeldt cleanly crooning over a heavier guitar passage, before a mixed acoustic and electric passage comes in and fades out the song in an unbelievably majestic fashion.
While two of the album’s three standouts to this point are softer tracks, the ruthless “Serenity Painted Death” features some of the most delicious riffing in Opeth’s catalogue. Akerfeldt goes into a very dark place lyrically and vocally, and the album reaches what I consider to be a pinnacle during the two instances of the song’s chorus, which is growled over an amazing dissonant riff and a wall of percussion. This is a perfect backdrop to the story’s climax, as the villagers find that Melinda is still in love with the protagonist, so they punish her by taking her life. The protagonist finds out and goes on a killing spree to avenge Melinda’s death until he is captured by the villagers.
The album’s finale, “White Cluster” creeps in next, giving the listener yet another dose of juicy guitar passages (clean and distorted), a great guitar solo about six and a half minutes in, and Akerfeldt’s back-and-forth between clean vocals and growls, with the chorus standing out as one of Still Life’s more notable moments. The song, which spends most of its time in 6/8 timing, fades out with an uneasy dissonant, distorted passage before the album bids the listener adieu with a calm clean guitar passage. It is also the end for the protagonist, who wakes from a dream in custody, where he is demanded to repent for the lives he has taken. He refuses and is executed, but is able to reunite with Melinda as he transitions to the afterlife.
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Still Life can essentially be considered a tragic work of literature delivered over an uneasy, diverse, and perfectly-executed musical landscape. Sonically, each song on Still Life is an entity; each has its own personality and emotion, and even though “Godhead’s Lament”, “Moonlapse Vertigo” and “White Cluster” tend to sound rather alike in spots, the brilliance of the story offsets this nicely.
The brilliance of Mikael Akerfeldt is on full display in both the music and lyrics. It is perfectly acceptable to look at Opeth’s more recent body of work and wonder why they decided to go off on such a subdued path when albums like Still Life, Blackwater Park and Ghost Reveries exist. The album is a perfect marriage of progressive rock and the heavier side of progressive metal, with the latter dominating the soundscape throughout the record. The combination of a medieval story dealing with religion and some downright brutal, death metal-inspired passages give this album a very unique personality, which is even further enhanced by the use of softer dynamics, slower tempos, and clean vocals.
Simply put, Still Life is a masterpiece, and represents the pinnacle of a long-lost era of a legendary band that even its biggest fans continue to yearn for.
