In concert, Opeth's lead singer and front man Mikael Åkerfeldt introduced two tracks from Damnation as "a glimpse into what the future might hold [for Opeth]". Åkerfeldt was extremely conscious of the divide between Damnation and Opeth's previous works - "I hope you like this stuff too" - which is understandable, as this album is a pretty major departure from the band's established repertoire. After six albums of fairly brutal stuff mixing death metal with progressive rock, Damnation is a release full of quieter, more "acoustic" (meaning, no crunchy distorted guitars here) songs.The end result is something that will sound very familiar to anyone grounded in the idioms of 70s prog rock, but that somehow doesn't have any obvious analogues. Maybe Porcupine Tree is the closest comparison - but there are also parallels to Pink Floyd, Camel, Landberk, etc. For this reason, this album should have a fair amount of appeal to "traditional" prog fans; however, I have to wonder how far that appeal goes, as beneath the pretty exterior there's not all that much depth.
Frankly, when I first played Damnation I thought the first couple tracks were very nice - tinged with that unique Scandinavian melancholy, nicely melodic, with tasteful use of Mellotron - but then they all started running together and I got bored quickly. After listening to it many more times, I still can't shake that feeling. With two exceptions, all the songs here are pleasant, melodic, and well constructed. There are some nice clean guitar solos, and Åkerfeldt's vocals are surprisingly good - expressive and emotional, an impressive counterpoint to his vicious death vocals on other albums. Nevertheless, it's all a little too slick, a little too inoffensive, a little too uneventful. There's nothing to really grab me and keep me coming back.
"Closure" in particular illustrates one fundamental problem with Damnation: its studied refusal to be anything but "Opeth's 'soft' album". The song builds to what could be a brilliant climax midway through, then cuts out entirely and drops back down to Åkerfeldt's quiet singing without any resolution; towards the end, the volume picks up again and a repetitive theme builds tension, only to cut out entirely again, without resolution. It's as if the band heard the original version of the song, picked out a few sections where they feel they got too loud for this album, and just deleted them. It just sounds very forced and artificial - the album's concept triumphing over the flow of the music.
Damnation has already garnered a lot of great reviews from prog fans. Maybe it'll be an "in" for people who don't like death metal to start liking Opeth's heavier stuff. If so, that's great. But for established fans of the heavier stuff, this may not cut it. Damnation may be a glimpse into one possible future for Opeth, but I hope it's not the one they opt for.
review by Brandon Wu — 2-17-04 —
