Imagine if Opeth had recorded a concept album made up of just one 40 minute track

[Valen]

For those of you lamenting Opeth's gradual move away from their heavier roots, imagine if they had recorded a concept album in their early days, with the album inspired by a short story, and the music consisting of one track only, running for 40 minutes.

If that catches your imagination, then perhaps my review of an album called Winter's Gate - an album I bought completely off the cuff with no prior knowledge - might inspire you:

https://momentstransition.wordpress....ers-gate-2016/

[moecurlythanu]

Then they'd be Transatlantic.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Then they'd be Transatlantic.

With the "one track only, running for 40 minutes" constituting - musically speaking - the exact same as would "five tracks, each eight minutes" or perhaps "ten tracks, each four minutes" - although, apparently, much less obviously "prog" once they weren't one track only.

[battema]

Certainly sounds nifty...might have to give it a go. Thanks!

[chalkpie]

The bloody Humira commercial won't stop playing..

[TheH]

Of course nothing would top this 24h progressive extravaganza!

[miamiscot]

Do I have to?

[Nearfest2]

So tired of these mega epics. I'm glad Opeth is doing exactly what they're doing.

[Gerhard]

Thanks for the link to Im Hallenbad. To really proggify it I have it playing in three windows in my browsers, completely out of sync. Very psychedelic.

[100423]

They are perhaps a bit more Melodeath than Opeth, but I understand why you would use that comparison on this site. I enjoyed their Shadows of the Dying Sun album, so I was up for checking this out. I've only listened to it once so far, but I think it is quite good.
Nice review, by the way!

[abhorsen]

I enjoyed your review as well and tend to believe that this is Insomnium's best album to date. If you like Swanö I would also encourage you to listen to his solo album called Moontower from 1998 and the album Crimson from his early band Edge of Sanity. That album is also made up of just one track!

[Liquid Tension]

So tired of these mega epics. I'm glad Opeth is doing exactly what they're doing.

I'm not.. Their last few discs are weak...

[Liquid Tension]

I enjoyed your review as well and tend to believe that this is Insomnium's best album to date. If you like Swanö I would also encourage you to listen to his solo album called Moontower from 1998 and the album Crimson from his early band Edge of Sanity. That album is also made up of just one track!

The Edge of Sanity disc is what I thought the Valen was going to mention...

[flowerking]

Not an Opeth fan, but Echolyn did this - the 45 minute Mei. Some love it, I found it totally boring.

[Valen]

Thanks for the positive feedback guys.

And thanks for the recommendations - Edge of Sanity going on my shopping list.

[100423]

Thanks for the positive feedback guys.

And thanks for the recommendations - Edge of Sanity going on my shopping list.

If you haven't heard that, you need to pronto.

[3LockBox]

In my opinion, most epic-length songs are boring

[aith01]

Not an Opeth fan, but Echolyn did this - the 45 minute Mei. Some love it, I found it totally boring.

One man's trash...

mei was a challenge for me to get all the way through. Some parts were flat-out awesome to me, and other parts didn't move me much at all. I think if it had been split into separate tracks it would've made it easier to skip to the parts I like, but artistically that may not have been what the band wanted (which I can respect).

[Baribrotzer]

One man's trash...

mei was a challenge for me to get all the way through. Some parts were flat-out awesome to me, and other parts didn't move me much at all. I think if it had been split into separate tracks it would've made it easier to skip to the parts I like, but artistically that may not have been what the band wanted (which I can respect).

I loved it from the first hearing. The way it flows from songlet to songlet, the way themes recur, the composerly, Coplandesque take on folky Americana, the Beat/Odyssey lyrics (always an Echolyn strong point), the symphonic/operatic scope of the whole project: For me, mei is the new bar in prog epics, surpassing both "Supper's Ready" and "Close to the Edge" in ambition, and equaling them in execution. Yes, it has a few weak parts, and the last ten minutes could have used a bit of editing - but those are failures of ambition. Echolyn pushed their compositional abilities to the edge for that one, and sometimes the cracks showed.

By the way, in contrast, I found the problem with "the window album" to be its lack of that kind of ambition. It sounded to me like they were trying to make a perfect record by focusing entirely on what they did best, and not going beyond that. And the result was a whole double album of excellent but very similar songs, like they'd done too much meta-level thinking.

[Progbear]

Imagine if their early albums had the Cookie Monster crap banded separately, so I could program it out. I might be able to appreciate them more. Then again, I never found their “prog”/“acoustic” stuff to be all that amazing, so maybe not...