Still Life (Opeth album)

Still Life is Opeth's fourth album, released under Peaceville/Snapper in 1999, only a year after their previous release, My Arms, Your Hearse. It was also re-issued on February 27, 2001. Up until their next album was released (Blackwater Park), Still Life had been the most successful. Like nearly all Opeth albums, this album combines both death metal and progressive rock elements. The exception is their 2003 release, Damnation, which is completely progressive, and contains no heavy death metal vocals. Still Life gives the narrative account of a man who returns to his home town after years of exile to find his beloved Melinda. Like its predecessor, My Arms, Your Hearse, Still Life is a concept album, with vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt's voice gaining a deeper death metal style, and experimentation with the dynamics of their songs; the transitions between soft and heavy parts. The album's "Benighted" is its only acoustic track, containing a jazzy guitar solo. "Benighted" is also one of the band's few songs that follow a linear song structure, containing verses and a chorus. The song "Face Of Melinda" is also a fairly soft song for Opeth, and while it does not contain heavy death metal vocals, it does contain heavy guitar riffs. A fretless bass guitar was used in "Face Of Melinda" to make it sound more jazzy. When the album was released the band received several death threats on account of "Face Of Melinda", but the band still looks to the song with a certain fondness and considers it their ballad. It was also performed live for the first time during their Lamentations Over America 2004 tour.

Track listing

"The Moor" - 11:28
"Godhead's Lament" - 09:47
"Benighted" - 05:01
"Moonlapse Vertigo" - 09:00
"Face of Melinda" - 07:59
"Serenity Painted Death" - 09:14
"White Cluster" - 10:02

Personnel

This album was the first recorded with Martin Mendez, who has continued to be the band's bass player.

External links

Still Life lyrics