#435 The Best Album of 2001, Round 1 Match #13: Spoon vs. Opeth
Hey folks!
Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:
#9 Spoon, GIRLS CAN TELL
vs.
#120 Opeth, BLACKWATER PARK
To vote, follow this link to the Google Form. You will need a Google login to vote. If you can’t or won’t have one, let me know ASAP (either through this newsletter, my email [kentmbeeson@hey.com] or on the Best Album Brackets Bluesky account) and I’ll see what I can do.
We have dueling Designated Cheerleaders today! First up it’s for GIRLS CAN TELL and it’s from @levin.bsky.social. Take it away, Elana!
Girls Can Tell was a comeback album from a band I absolutely did not care about till they came back. After two disappointing 90s albums their label dropped them. They went on hiatus and somewhere in there Britt Daniel studied The Kinks and Elvis Costello and became a firstrate songwriter.
Daniel’s got a great rock and roll voice–instantly recognizable. He emotes like a champ. He’s got some throaty raspyness underlying a sweet tone. He makes interesting choices in his vocal melodies. He can Beatles when he wants to–John Lennon specifically.
Spoon was co-founded by drummer Jim Eno. They sound like a band co-founded by a drummer. The piano? Percussive. Vibraphone going bing bong? Percussive. Daniel’s vocals on songs like “Believing Is Art” are EXTREMELY percussive. Lots of syncopation. Apparently they are fellow fans of Jamaican Ska.
There’s a lot going into these songs: Power Pop yes, but also a Steely Dan chord here, a Duanne Eddy guitar there. Marquis Moon bass moment. And bless them for having vocal harmonies in moments even if it's just Daniel multitracked.
I’m not big into indie but this is a tremendous album. Highlights:
How was “Me and the Bean” not a single?
“The Fitted Shirt” borrows that Kashmir beat, but about the challenge of finding slim fit shirts in the 90s. JK it’s about complicated Dad feelings.
“Anything You Want” in retrospect sounds quite 90s but also a bit Todd Rundgren? Great vocals.
“Take A Walk” is fantastic. A real rocker that presages 2022’s Lucifer on the Sofa.
“Take the Fifth” reminds me of Lily' s perfect distillation of 1966. Stunning.
The album feels over too soon. I still don’t know what exactly it is that Girls Can Tell, but we can always put on Spoon and be rhapsodized by it.
Thank you, Elana! Next up, it’s for BLACKWATER PARK, and it’s from Sumon Saha. Take it away, Sumon!
As the release date of Opeth’s fifth album Blackwater Park approached, I’ll admit that I possessed some level of apprehension. It’s not that I wasn’t a huge fan. I was a guaranteed sale for anything this band put out. I don’t quite remember how it started. I know I discovered them in high school, and their second album Morningrise was my entry point. I have some vague memories of a metalhead bus driver who may have turned me on to them. They may have come up in one of the many morning conversations with her that I tried to use to keep my drowsy, bleary-eyed ass awake (a morning person I was not…Morningrise may have been a great album, but it was an ironic title relating to how I faced the day). I also may have noticed a mention of them in an errant issue of Metal Maniacs magazine I had picked up from Tower Records. In any case, I liked Morningrise quite a bit, but when their next album, My Arms, Your Hearse came out, I was captivated. Not only was it the greatest synthesis of my two biggest musical loves, prog rock and death metal, I’d ever heard up to that point, but it was exactly the album I needed during my turbulent freshman year of college as well. Opeth had catapulted almost to the top of my list of favorite bands.
Between My Arms, Your Hearse and Blackwater Park, Opeth released Still Life and frankly, I was disappointed. It’s not a bad album at all, but it felt stilted and forced compared to its predecessor. I’ll admit that it came out during a very difficult year for me personally, so it may carry some tough associations, but I haven’t really listened to it much in the years since. If any Opeth fans want to shout at me and tell me I’m wrong, I’ll understand. I probably am. It does have “Serenity Painted Death” on it, which is an unimpeachable song, so it’s easy for me to concede the point.
Thankfully, Steven Wilson didn’t agree with my assessment of Still Life. The maestro of English psychedelic prog band Porcupine Tree liked it so much he felt like he just had to work with Opeth, and with Blackwater Park, he kicked off a long association with them as their producer. We all lucked out because Wilson opened up all new doors that made the band heavier, proggier, and frankly, more themselves. The clear production and expert engineering really highlight frontman and primary songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt’s intricate arrangements and the incredibly nuanced musicianship that have always been a hallmark of Opeth. These qualities were always there, but never in their career were they so appreciable, or so expertly deployed. Listening to it again, I’m still struck not just by its ambition, but also by how purely gorgeous it is. The songwriting is just so powerful and intensely evocative. The album is a collection of songs of the sepulchral suffused with the sonorous spirit of the Swedish forest. There’s a beauty in its brutality and the dark melodies, acoustic interludes, and meandering musical explorations that would put any jam band to shame carry lyrics that would make a thousand Gothic poets want to burn their notebooks (a selection from “Harvest”: Into the orchard, I walk peering way past the gate/Wilted scenes for us who couldn't wait/Drained by the coldest caress/Stalking shadows ahead/Halo of death/All I see is departure/Mourner's lament, but it's me who's the martyr).
What’s amazing is how immediately Blackwater Park announces its arrival. All the fears I had about the band after Still Life immediately melted away literally within the first few notes of the album opener “The Leper Affinity.” It was so clear that what I was hearing was a band that was confidently actualizing its intentions and creating a dark, epic masterpiece. Blackwater Park is not only Opeth’s greatest album, it’s also the most representative of everything they’re capable of. They bring together all their influences and bind them together harmoniously to create something truly singular. The album has everything from aggressive death metal growls to clean singing of plaintive, funereal longing. From fast and loud hard rock guitar distortion to spacey, intricately picked acoustic classicism. From ten-minute long epics to slight, meditative interspaces. Blackwater Park is the standard bearer of melodic death-infused progressive metal. It’s a special work and it’s one of the best albums I have in my music collection of any genre.
Thank you, Sumon!
Click here to see the current results for the entire tournament, and click here to see the current results for the prediction bracket contest.
Yesterday, #4 Daft Punk, DISCOVERY defeated #125 Tipsy, UH-OH!, 149-58.
Thanks,
Kent
Add a comment: