Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast
Results 26 to 50 of 69

Thread: Opeth To Release New Album - Sorceress

  1. #26
    Viral marketing continues

    If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
    https://battema.bandcamp.com/

    Also, Ephemeral Sun: it's a thing and we like making things that might be your thing: https://ephemeralsun.bandcamp.com

  2. #27
    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Kansas City Area
    Posts
    552
    If it was a Saab or Volvo, maybe...

  3. #28
    If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
    https://battema.bandcamp.com/

    Also, Ephemeral Sun: it's a thing and we like making things that might be your thing: https://ephemeralsun.bandcamp.com

  4. #29
    What was heard in the background from Frederik sounds like it may have a heavier edge to it. It's Opeth, I'm in all the way.

  5. #30
    Insect Overlord Progatron's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    southern Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    7,108
    Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.

    *** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***

  6. #31
    Wow...digging it!

  7. #32
    Moderator Poisoned Youth's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    Nothern Virginia, USA
    Posts
    3,020
    Cool. Thanks for sharing!
    WANTED: Sig-worthy quote.

  8. #33
    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Kansas City Area
    Posts
    552
    OPETH REVEALS TITLE TRACK, “SORCERESS,” FROM UPCOMING ALBUM AT ROLLINGSTONE.COM
    OPETH·MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 2016
    New Album, Sorceress, Out September 30th On Moderbolaget Records/Nuclear Blast Entertainment August 1, 2016 – Los Angeles, CA – As the heavy-rock and metal scenes brace for one of the year’s most anticipated albums, experimental prog pioneers OPETH has declared the wait is over. Today, the band has partnered with RollingStone.com to unveil the first new song and title track, “Sorceress,” from their upcoming, 12th studio album that’s due out on September 30th via the band’s imprint label Moderbolaget Records with Nuclear Blast Entertainment. Listen to “Sorceress” and read an exclusive interview with Mikael Åkerfeldt now at RollingStone.com: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/fe...new-lp-w431901
    “Here you go kids! Here’s the title track, ”Sorceress,” combined with the now obligatory lyric video. Why not eh? We’re happy with the tune. It’s heavy, a bit "meat and potato,” but what the hell…we love it! Hope you do too!” – Mikael Åkerfeldt
    Additionally, OPETH, with their label, has launched a variety of pre-orders for physical copies of Sorceress that can be purchased today. The record will be available in an array of formats and editions including Standard Jewel CD, 2CD Digipak, 2LP Vinyl (in various colors at 180 gram) and a Deluxe Edition Wooden Box Set. Digital pre-orders will be available tomorrow. Details are listed below. Fans’ can catch OPETH live in concert this fall on their North American headline tour. Dates are listed below.
    Pre-order Sorceress - Physical (Available Monday, August 1st): Nuclear Blast Store: http://nblast.de/OpethSorceressNB
    OPETH Store (US): http://www.jsrdirect.com/bands/opeth (Exclusive Orange Vinyl Available)
    OPETH Store (Euro): http://store.moderbolagetrecords.com (Exclusive Silver Vinyl Available)
    Opeth Store (Nordic): http://www.omerchnordic.com
    Pre-order Sorceress - Digital (Available Tuesday, August 2nd):
    iTunes: http://nblast.de/OpethSorceressIT
    Amazon: http://nblast.de/OpethSorceressAMZMP3
    Google Play: http://nblast.de/OpethSorceressGP

  9. #34
    Member frinspar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Tucson, AZ
    Posts
    346
    I'm listening for the 5th time in a row on my headphones right now. This track is absolutely fantastic. Groovalicious. Already want to learn to play it.

  10. #35
    I am really liking the new track too. It kind of does what I've been wanting from Opeth since Watershed: I don't need them to go back and sound like they used to, but I kind of like some of those heavy elements, and missed them on Heritage & Pale Communion.
    If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
    https://battema.bandcamp.com/

    Also, Ephemeral Sun: it's a thing and we like making things that might be your thing: https://ephemeralsun.bandcamp.com

  11. #36
    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Kansas City Area
    Posts
    552
    Studio Report #2 - Guitars:


  12. #37
    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Kansas City Area
    Posts
    552
    Studio Report #3 - Drums:


  13. #38
    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Kansas City Area
    Posts
    552
    Studio Report #4 - Bass:


  14. #39
    Member chalkpie's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Hudson Valley, NY
    Posts
    8,178
    Bunch of really nice blokes.

  15. #40
    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Kansas City Area
    Posts
    552
    Studio Report #5 - Vocals


  16. #41
    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Kansas City Area
    Posts
    552
    Track by track guide with Mikael & Fredrik:

    http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-08-...e-to-sorceress

    Opeth's frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt and guitarist Fredrik Åkesson give us a blow by blow account of their new album Sorceress
    Persephone
    Mikael Åkerfeldt [vocals/guitar]: “It’s an intro. It’s a lovely intro! I wanted a Spanish or Mexican feel to it. Mendez (Opeth bassist, Martin Mendez) had a name for it… he called it Pepé! (laughs) It has some spoken word going on, so it needed something that would fit with that. It has the most simple melody you can think of.”

    Fredrik Åkesson [guitar]: “It has a definite Ennio Morricone vibe, I think.”

    Mikael: “The title came when I read up on Persephone and checked out who she was… there’s a love story between her and Hades, at least from his point of view, and it just worked with the mood of the album. I guess she’s a sorceress too.”

    Sorceress
    Mikael: “I started this song with the little fusion-esque introduction, two riffs and there’s no guitar. I wondered ‘What happens now?’ I tuned down, so I had two A strings, effectively, and I was just fooling around and I came up with the opening heavy riff. It’s a trick, really. I hope someone will hear the start of the song and think ‘Oh, not another fusion song!’ and then the riff comes in…it’s really heavy. It’s a catchy song but it doesn’t have a chorus. It’s very heavy, almost stupid meat and potatoes. I think it sounds like you’re about to be beaten up [laughs]. The song ends with a melodic part which was very influenced by Abba. And then it ends with the biggest chord ever!”

    The Wilde Flowers
    Mikael: “This was the first song I wrote for this album. It’s kind of an Opeth standard, in a way, like from the last two albums. It’s very dynamic. It has a chorus, I guess. Then there’s a big Queen-sounding bit in the middle just before this massive solo… oh, and harps! They’re hidden in the mix but they’re there. The title comes from the band Caravan – they were originally called Wilde Flowers. I always liked those weird spellings.”

    Will O The Wisp
    Mikael: “It’s a song inspired by Dun Ringill by Jethro Tull (from the album Stormwatch, 1979). I wanted to do a song with my capo really high, so it’s up on the fifth fret. It makes the guitar sound really glittery. I just wanted to go for a simple, catchy vocal melody. It has a slightly positive vibe to it, but the lyrics are really, really dark. It’s a beautiful song, I think. I’m really happy with that one.”


    Chrysalis
    Mikael: “This one had the working title Shuffle. It’s a meat and potatoes heavy rock song. I call it the sausage! When you looked on the computer grid, the song looked like a big solid, sound sausage! (laughs) So it’s really not dynamic. It’s a hard rock or metal song. It’s got some interesting twists and turns in terms of the chord progressions, which make the vocal melody go where you don’t expect it to go. Then we phased the drums at the end so it’s swirling around. There’s a great solo duel between Fredrik on guitar and Joakim (Svalberg, Opeth keyboard player) on the organ. I really love that part.”

    Sorceress 2
    Mikael: “It’s another early one, the third song I wrote for the album. It has a lot of falsetto singing and harmonies. The singing is all me. The lyrics go ‘Are you gonna love me when I die?’ …you know, that sort of thing! (laughs) It’s beautiful. There’s not much to say about it, really. I wanted the end to sound a bit like Black Mountain Side (from Led Zeppelin’s 1970 debut), if that makes sense.”

    The Seventh Sojourn
    Mikael: “That was inspired by the band Family. They have a song on their Entertainment record called Summer ’67, and it has Middle Eastern scales, which I love, so I wanted to do something like that, with strings. It’s almost entirely instrumental until the very end. The strings were done by Will Malone, who produced the first Iron Maiden record. He also did strings for Sabbath and he’s done things like Joss Stone and The Verve too. He put out some great solo records, including one I paid about £1,900 for! I got in touch with him to see if he had any more copies of the record, and also as a way in (laughs). He asked me to send him the track and he loved it. He kept my original arrangement, too. He wouldn’t take credit for the string arrangement. It was a pleasure to have him on there – it sounds really great.”


    Strange Brew
    Mikael: “That’s one where Fredrik came up with the theme that repeats. It had a completely different arrangement.”

    Fredrik: “Yeah, I recorded a completely different version of it. It was a more evil version of Dazed And Confused by Led Zeppelin, but it turned into something totally different.”

    Mikael: “When Fred plays me something, I look for what we can turn into a song and what’s going to happen next, and that theme was perfect. We rearranged it and then I added the middle section, which is a crazy Mahavishnu Orchestra-style thing… and then it changes into a really bluesy part. That was inspired by Cream, which explains the title. I was listening to Disraeli Gears a lot. I even tried to get that guitar tone.”

    Fredrik: “I always really enjoy it when me and Mikael do trade-off solos. We do these long bluesy solos – Mikael does the first one. That’s really fun.”

    A Fleeting Glance
    Mikael: “It’s very British sounding. It reminds me of Queen and Porcupine Tree and Pink Floyd. It’s one of my favourite songs we’ve done. It’s a very light-sounding song but the lyrics are very dark. It has a big ending and a nice build-up. The middle section has a heavy riff that makes me think of Toto! I’m particularly happy with that. And we have harpsichord on this song, which is a first for us. We weren’t sure if we wanted it at first, but once we tried it out it sounded great. It definitely has that feel of British psychedelic music.”

    Era
    Mikael: “It’s a catchy ‘80s heavy metal song. It’s so fast! It’s really fucking difficult to play.”

    Fredrik: “I remember when we recorded the guitar rhythms for that, because it goes on for such a long time! I had this blister on my finger and it was going to explode at any moment. I just kept going and it never exploded! (laughs)

    Mikael: “People are either going to hate that song or absolutely love it. It’s a contender for a single. The first single will be Sorceress, the second will be Will O The Wisp and then, I think, Era.”

    Persephone (Slight Return)
    Mikael: “It’s not really a song, just the last part of Era, really. The ‘slight return’ bit in the title is a tribute to Hendrix, of course. Once the album has done, the sorceress has calmed down and stopped being vicious and that’s what the outro is about!”
    Last edited by 100423; 08-26-2016 at 10:15 AM. Reason: cutting out the ads in the middle

  17. #42

  18. #43
    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Kansas City Area
    Posts
    552
    Studio report #6 - Guitars: Fredrik



  19. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by YtseJammer View Post
    I just came across this review elsewhere...it has me feeling pretty excited to hear the full album.
    If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
    https://battema.bandcamp.com/

    Also, Ephemeral Sun: it's a thing and we like making things that might be your thing: https://ephemeralsun.bandcamp.com

  20. #45

  21. #46
    Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Iowa City IA
    Posts
    2,432
    I really want to hear this one too! I'm not a big fan at all but I liked the last two "prog" efforts and it sounds like I'll enjoy this one as well. Somehow I guessed from the title that Will O the Wisp would have a Tull influence and Wilde Flowers was clearly going to be a Caravan-inspired track.

    One thing I'm curious about: how has the prog been received by the band's metal fanbase? Enough of them must like it for the band to keep making prog records, I guess... But still I could imagine Blackwater Park fans thinking a big WTF regarding recent Opeth music.

  22. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by arturs View Post
    I'm not a big fan at all but I liked the last two "prog" efforts and it sounds like I'll enjoy this one as well. .
    Proceed with care if you didn't like their metal past. The new one is in its majority firmly rooted in heavy (not death) metal.
    Macht das ohr auf!

    COSMIC EYE RECORDS

  23. #48
    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Kansas City Area
    Posts
    552
    Song From The Woods of Opeth:



  24. #49

  25. #50
    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Kansas City Area
    Posts
    552
    A nice review from Metal Sucks:

    http://www.metalsucks.net/2016/09/07...ss-approaches/

    Opeth: A Sorceress Approaches!

    In the current music culture, style trumps ideas. Critics praise genre executions; promoters book neatly packaged tours; labels and PR firms specialize in marketing to ever-tighter niche audiences. Though this isn’t necessarily different than how things were in the MTV era, since 1980, we’ve been speeding rapidly towards a music world dominated by bands who thrive on expectancy. People form bands to be band-first, musician second. It feels as though we have fewer and fewer groups who focus on the music above all – the fundamental levels of melodies, rhythms, and arrangements.

    Whether or not you embrace Opeth’s progression since Heritage, they are one of the last large-scale guitar-based bands that are all about the ideas. Every album in their discography has – to varying degrees – challenged their abilities, audience expectations, and merit of a musical idea.

    Despite what I’ve been reading from other critics, I don’t feel as though Sorceress really has much to do with “prog rock” in the sense that an album like Heritage did. To me, this album and Pale Communion have much more in common with the sensibilities of bands like Fleetwood Mac, who hid their darkness in plain sight; as if the Beatles had scored a Roman Polanski movie; Lalo Schifrin arranging for a NWOBHM band; a re-imagination of late-career Led Zeppelin. Opeth continue to blur the lines between metal, folk, neo-classical, and so many other genre-voices — not in a stylized way, but in how they apply their ideas to varying contexts.

    Take “The Seventh Sojourn,” one of the band’s most ambitious compositions to date. Despite being completely devoid of electric guitars, drums, and thick keyboards, it’s one of the band’s most purely evil tunes. Much like how Revocation’s Dave Davidson conceives of “heavy” in a melodic sense, this is one of many songs in Opeth’s recent discography that thrives on minor modes and middle-eastern harmonies, moving between the flat and raised seventh-degree of the scale depending on a riff’s progression, resolving a line with upward chromatic motion, and slyly incorporating the tritone as a passing note.

    For a band that’s seemingly done it all harmonically, Sorceress finds them prancing fresh ground. On songs like “Sorceress 2” and “Era,” Opeth are more naked than ever before, treading similar ground as The Kinks’ Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, The Who’s Tommy, and The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle. Those albums are familiar touchstones for most Pitchforkcore bands these days – but for bands like Opeth that have thrived on harmonic surprises and “trickery’ in the past, this stripped-down, psychadelic-pop harmonic sensibility is a fresh turn.

    Sorceress may also be the band’s most intricately designed album on an arranging and production level. Every tone (and tonal shift) is so carefully calibrated, and the band have achieved a new level of comfort in using the tools at their disposal – much like some of their generational peers in bands like Radiohead and The Dillinger Escape Plan. From the lightly-toasted opening clean-guitar dual of “Strange Brew” that are brought to a halt by Peter Svalberg’s distorted organ, to the pristinely realized fuzz-intro of “Sorceress,” this album shows the band working every riff to its proper sonic voice. The interplay between each member’s tones is something that Frank Zappa might have pursued for the live incarnation of the Mothers of Invention in the mid-70’s (see: Roxy & Elsewhere): organic and performed, but after everyone’s sonic palette have been perfectly-tweaked.

    All this to say, I haven’t really heard many albums that sound like Sorceress, both in terms of its composition and production. It’s just, like, weird, man. You could point to the individual influences (as many music nerds love to do, given Mikael’s famous record-collecting habits), or to the familiar hallmarks of Opeth’s sound, but the band is finally beginning to find its footing in the post-Watershed era. They’ve found something strange, and they’re running with it.

    There’s a curious link across time and mediums between Miles Davis’ 1967 progressive jazz album Sorcerer, William Friedkin’s 1977 film Sorcerer, and Opeth’s Sorceress. The three works share not just titles (inspiring concepts on their own) but also artistic sensibilities. Opeth have steeped themselves in a mindset that you don’t see often these days – one which values the potential of a musical idea, pushing it to the extremes of its expression.

    Although Watershed remains my favorite of their, Opeth are a band clearly in the throes of reinvention and re-conception. I’m really not sure where they’ll go next – and in an artistic climate where expectancy is the norm, they are a band to be treasured.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •