Still Life (Opeth album)
Encyclopedia
Still Life is the fourth studio album from Swedish
progressive death metal band Opeth
. The album was produced and engineered by Opeth "under the watchful eye" of Fredrik Nordström
.
Like most of the band's albums, Still Life features the combination of death metal
and progressive rock
elements that is characteristic of Opeth's music style. With this album, vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt
's death growl
began to deepen considerably relative to the band's earlier albums. Still Life continues the band's experimentation with dynamics
, and most songs contain at least two drastic dynamic shifts. The song "Benighted" is the only acoustic track, containing a blues
-influenced guitar solo
. This is also one of the band's few songs that follow a linear song structure, containing verses and a chorus. "Face of Melinda" is, for the most part, another ballad
; while it does not contain death metal vocals, it does contain guitar riff
s that are typical of the band's heavier songs. A fretless bass guitar along with brushes in place of conventional drumsticks were used in "Face of Melinda" to give it a jazzier sound.
, Still Life is a concept album
. Front-man Mikael Åkerfeldt
explains: "The main character is kind of banished from his hometown because he hasn't got the same faith as the rest of the inhabitants there. The album pretty much starts off when he is returning after several years to hook up with his old 'babe.' The big bosses of the town know that he's back... A lot of bad things start happening."
"The Moor" introduces the main character as an outcast of a theocratic
state because he did not share the same religious beliefs with the others. He was called an "ungodly freak, defiler", and was "branded a Jonah with fevered blood". He recalls being beaten, burned, covered with mud, and banished from his town. He is now returning 15 years later for his love, Melinda, whom he had to leave behind when he was banished.
"Godhead's Lament" finds the outcast attempting to conceal his return. He contemplates the consequences and considers leaving for safety's sake, but he does not because his love
for her outweighs his will to live. Much of the song consists of his observation of Melinda from afar. The song also introduces the watchful eye of the religious authority and emphasizes the danger that he is in.
"Benighted" reads like a love letter, an unspoken ode to Melinda. The outcast tries to convince Melinda to run away with him and observes that the grip of the society's religion has taken control of her life. He argues that the only way for her to free herself is to come with him.
"Moonlapse Vertigo" is a reminder that the people of the town would kill him if they realized he was there. The song references the Council of the Cross, the theocratic
government, who openly shows scorn for the disgraced and the poor. He realizes that he has almost no time left to flee and decides to meet Melinda at last and lead her out of the country with him. The outcast expresses his immense hatred towards the Council as well as his concern for Melinda.
"Face of Melinda" paints the black-haired lady as a quiet, brooding creature as he approaches her. After his failure to court her, she became a nun, a "harlot of God"; however, he does not give up and "plot(s) to have her back" to fill his emptiness. He is disheartened, but tells her about all that he had risked to return to her. She tells him of her own moral failings, but surprises even herself when she tells him that she still loves him. The song ends with a grim clue of what's to come—"and baffled herself with the final line / 'my promise is made but my heart is thine'"—which implies that these are Melinda's last words.
"Serenity Painted Death" begins when the outcast awakens to find Melinda has been taken and her throat slit for associating with the outcast. Consumed by pent-up fury, he brutally kills the soldiers who had killed Melinda. He continues to kill every soldier he can before "At last, weak and torn, [he] went down / Drained from strength, flickering breath." As his mind wanders, the Council of the Cross is there to take him.
"White Cluster" begins with the outcast returning from a dream-like state to find himself in a jail cell. The Council of the Cross tries to make him repent but he is insincere. He is led to the gallows to be hanged. The townspeople who have gathered to watch the execution wear white, representing their belief that he was born without a soul. The hangman approaches him and ties the noose, allowing him a moment of reflection before he is hanged. Just before he meets his end, he feels a hand on his shoulder and when he looks around he sees Melinda standing just behind him, waiting for him to join her in death.
label on October 18, 1999. Due to problems with the band's new distribution network, the album was not released in the US until February 27, 2001.
Still Life was the first album recorded with bassist Martin Mendez
and the first Opeth album to bear any kind of caption on the front cover upon its initial release, including the band's logo.
The album was re-released by Peaceville Records
in 2000 as a slipcase version and again as a digipak
version in 2003. A third re-release came out on March 31, 2008, with reworked album artwork by original artist Travis Smith. This new edition has two discs, the first one being a remastered stereo mix
of the album on Audio CD
and the second one being an Audio DVD containing a 5.1 surround sound
mix. The DVD also contains a live video for the album track "Face of Melinda" from The Roundhouse Tapes
live performance in London
. The remastered and remixed versions of the original recordings were done by Jens Bogren.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
progressive death metal band Opeth
Opeth
Opeth is a Swedish heavy metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1990. Though the group has been through several personnel changes, singer, guitarist, and songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt has remained Opeth's driving force throughout the years...
. The album was produced and engineered by Opeth "under the watchful eye" of Fredrik Nordström
Fredrik Nordström
Björn Tom Fredrik Nordström, born on 5 January 1967, is a Swedish record producer and guitar player for the heavy metal band Dream Evil. Nordström is one of the leading melodic death metal producers in Sweden, and he has worked with some of the genre's top acts, including At the Gates, Arch Enemy,...
.
Style
Allmusic called Still Life a "formidable splicing of harsh, often jagged guitar riffs with graceful melodies".Like most of the band's albums, Still Life features the combination of death metal
Death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
and progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
elements that is characteristic of Opeth's music style. With this album, vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt
Mikael Åkerfeldt
Lars Mikael Åkerfeldt is a Swedish musician who achieved fame as the lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter of progressive death metal band Opeth as well as the lead vocalist of death metal band Bloodbath. He was the vocalist and guitarist for the band Sörskogen and the guitarist of the band Steel...
's death growl
Death growl
A death growl, also known as death metal vocals, guttural vocals, death grunts, and harsh vocals among other names, is a vocalisation style usually employed by vocalists of the death metal and black metal music genre, but also used in a variety of heavy metal and hardcore punk subgenres.Death...
began to deepen considerably relative to the band's earlier albums. Still Life continues the band's experimentation with dynamics
Dynamics (music)
In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
, and most songs contain at least two drastic dynamic shifts. The song "Benighted" is the only acoustic track, containing a blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
-influenced guitar solo
Guitar solo
In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...
. This is also one of the band's few songs that follow a linear song structure, containing verses and a chorus. "Face of Melinda" is, for the most part, another ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
; while it does not contain death metal vocals, it does contain guitar riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
s that are typical of the band's heavier songs. A fretless bass guitar along with brushes in place of conventional drumsticks were used in "Face of Melinda" to give it a jazzier sound.
Concept
Like its predecessor, My Arms, Your HearseMy Arms, Your Hearse
My Arms, Your Hearse is Opeth's third studio album, released in 1998. This album marks a large stylistic change from their previous release, Morningrise, especially production-wise...
, Still Life is a concept album
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
. Front-man Mikael Åkerfeldt
Mikael Åkerfeldt
Lars Mikael Åkerfeldt is a Swedish musician who achieved fame as the lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter of progressive death metal band Opeth as well as the lead vocalist of death metal band Bloodbath. He was the vocalist and guitarist for the band Sörskogen and the guitarist of the band Steel...
explains: "The main character is kind of banished from his hometown because he hasn't got the same faith as the rest of the inhabitants there. The album pretty much starts off when he is returning after several years to hook up with his old 'babe.' The big bosses of the town know that he's back... A lot of bad things start happening."
"The Moor" introduces the main character as an outcast of a theocratic
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
state because he did not share the same religious beliefs with the others. He was called an "ungodly freak, defiler", and was "branded a Jonah with fevered blood". He recalls being beaten, burned, covered with mud, and banished from his town. He is now returning 15 years later for his love, Melinda, whom he had to leave behind when he was banished.
"Godhead's Lament" finds the outcast attempting to conceal his return. He contemplates the consequences and considers leaving for safety's sake, but he does not because his love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
for her outweighs his will to live. Much of the song consists of his observation of Melinda from afar. The song also introduces the watchful eye of the religious authority and emphasizes the danger that he is in.
"Benighted" reads like a love letter, an unspoken ode to Melinda. The outcast tries to convince Melinda to run away with him and observes that the grip of the society's religion has taken control of her life. He argues that the only way for her to free herself is to come with him.
"Moonlapse Vertigo" is a reminder that the people of the town would kill him if they realized he was there. The song references the Council of the Cross, the theocratic
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
government, who openly shows scorn for the disgraced and the poor. He realizes that he has almost no time left to flee and decides to meet Melinda at last and lead her out of the country with him. The outcast expresses his immense hatred towards the Council as well as his concern for Melinda.
"Face of Melinda" paints the black-haired lady as a quiet, brooding creature as he approaches her. After his failure to court her, she became a nun, a "harlot of God"; however, he does not give up and "plot(s) to have her back" to fill his emptiness. He is disheartened, but tells her about all that he had risked to return to her. She tells him of her own moral failings, but surprises even herself when she tells him that she still loves him. The song ends with a grim clue of what's to come—"and baffled herself with the final line / 'my promise is made but my heart is thine'"—which implies that these are Melinda's last words.
"Serenity Painted Death" begins when the outcast awakens to find Melinda has been taken and her throat slit for associating with the outcast. Consumed by pent-up fury, he brutally kills the soldiers who had killed Melinda. He continues to kill every soldier he can before "At last, weak and torn, [he] went down / Drained from strength, flickering breath." As his mind wanders, the Council of the Cross is there to take him.
"White Cluster" begins with the outcast returning from a dream-like state to find himself in a jail cell. The Council of the Cross tries to make him repent but he is insincere. He is led to the gallows to be hanged. The townspeople who have gathered to watch the execution wear white, representing their belief that he was born without a soul. The hangman approaches him and ties the noose, allowing him a moment of reflection before he is hanged. Just before he meets his end, he feels a hand on his shoulder and when he looks around he sees Melinda standing just behind him, waiting for him to join her in death.
Release and reception
Due to time constraints, the band was able to rehearse only twice before entering the studio. Delays with the album's artwork pushed the release back an additional month, and the album was released in Europe under the Peaceville/SnapperPeaceville Records
Peaceville Records is a British independent metal-oriented record label. The label was founded by Paul "Hammy" Halmshaw in 1987, in Dewsbury, England...
label on October 18, 1999. Due to problems with the band's new distribution network, the album was not released in the US until February 27, 2001.
Still Life was the first album recorded with bassist Martin Mendez
Martin Mendez
Martín Méndez is the bass guitar player of progressive death metal band Opeth and second most constant member of the band, behind lead vocalist, songwriter and guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt....
and the first Opeth album to bear any kind of caption on the front cover upon its initial release, including the band's logo.
The album was re-released by Peaceville Records
Peaceville Records
Peaceville Records is a British independent metal-oriented record label. The label was founded by Paul "Hammy" Halmshaw in 1987, in Dewsbury, England...
in 2000 as a slipcase version and again as a digipak
Digipak
Digipak is a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI World Ltd., an Atlas Holdings company.-Features:...
version in 2003. A third re-release came out on March 31, 2008, with reworked album artwork by original artist Travis Smith. This new edition has two discs, the first one being a remastered stereo mix
Stereophonic sound
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...
of the album on Audio CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
and the second one being an Audio DVD containing a 5.1 surround sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
mix. The DVD also contains a live video for the album track "Face of Melinda" from The Roundhouse Tapes
The Roundhouse Tapes
-Disc Two:-DVD:# "When" − 10:28# "Ghost of Perdition" − 10:57# "Under the Weeping Moon" − 10:28# "Bleak" − 8:39# "Face of Melinda" − 9:58# "The Night and the Silent Water" − 10:29# "Windowpane" − 8:01# "Blackwater Park" − 18:59# "Demon of the Fall" − 8:13...
live performance in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The remastered and remixed versions of the original recordings were done by Jens Bogren.
Track listing
Opeth
- Mikael ÅkerfeldtMikael ÅkerfeldtLars Mikael Åkerfeldt is a Swedish musician who achieved fame as the lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter of progressive death metal band Opeth as well as the lead vocalist of death metal band Bloodbath. He was the vocalist and guitarist for the band Sörskogen and the guitarist of the band Steel...
− vocals, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with... - Peter LindgrenPeter Lindgren (musician)Peter Lindgren is a Swedish musician and songwriter. He is best known as the former guitarist of Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth...
− guitar - Martin MendezMartin MendezMartín Méndez is the bass guitar player of progressive death metal band Opeth and second most constant member of the band, behind lead vocalist, songwriter and guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt....
− bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... - Martin LopezMartin LopezMartin Lopez is a drummer, known best for his nine years with the Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth.Lopez was born in Sweden to Uruguayan settler parents, later moving to Uruguay, then back to Sweden.-With Soen :...
− drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
Production
- Fredrik NordströmFredrik NordströmBjörn Tom Fredrik Nordström, born on 5 January 1967, is a Swedish record producer and guitar player for the heavy metal band Dream Evil. Nordström is one of the leading melodic death metal producers in Sweden, and he has worked with some of the genre's top acts, including At the Gates, Arch Enemy,...
− engineeringAudio engineeringAn audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including... - Isak Edh − engineering
- Opeth − engineering
- Göran Finnberg − masteringAudio masteringMastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
- Jens BogrenJens BogrenJens Peter Daniel Bogren is a record producer, mixer and recording engineer who has worked on albums by Opeth, Katatonia, Soilwork, God Forbid, Iron Mask, Amon Amarth, and Symphony X, amongst others...
− 2008 reissue remasterRemasterRemaster is a word marketed mostly in the digital audio age, although the remastering process has existed since recording began...
ing and 5.15.1 surround sound5.1 is the common name for six channel surround sound multichannel audio systems. 5.1 is now the most commonly used layout in both commercial cinemas and home theaters. It uses five full bandwidth channels and one low frequency enhancement channel . Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II, DTS, and...
remixRemixA remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song .... - Travis SmithTravis Smith (artist)Travis Smith is an American graphic artist best known for designing heavy metal album art. He has been called "renowned" by Alternative Press and "unquestionably one of the most talented graphic artists in metal today" by Chronicles of Chaos...
− album art