Kevmaster wrote:What the hell is Opeth - Heritage doing in this thread? That album finally totally ruined the band for me

I'm kind of an Opeth fanboy, so I feel both inclined to disagree and agree with dislike of Heritage. Strangely the album hooked me right away; it felt livelier than Damnation, considerably proggier than anything they'd done, and exceptionally creative. After being hooked on it for a week or so I started to feel like Akerfeldt's singing was a little lackluster and actually the weakest point of the album. That's strange to me because I've always felt the music melded so well with Opeth. Heavy, aggressive passages with death growls, balanced by melodic sections with clean vocals, and occasionally heavy sections with clean vocals. Just a good mixture of sounds. Then Damnation came out, with no distorted guitars or death growls, but just mellow and clean all around. Still a pretty solid album if not really in line with their discography. But Heritage feels a little out of place, like Akerfeldt couldn't use clean singing to power through the more aggressive portions of the album.
I still really like it, though, and would put it in my top 10, but I also haven't fully enjoyed 10 new albums this year, and thus my lack of a list.