My love affair with Opeth

Ok, let’s begin with what Opeth is. Opeth is a progressive death metal band from Sweden. For those of you who have no clue of what I’m talking about, heavy metal is a sub-genre of rock music, and according to wikipedia, it has “a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness”. Got that bit?

Now death metal, is a sub-genre of heavy metal. Wikipedia again, “…It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals…complex song structures with multiple tempo changes…Death metal vocals are often guttural roars, grunts, snarls, and low gurgles…The lyrical themes of death metal often invoke slasher film-stylized violence, but may also extend to topics like Satanism, anti-religion, occultism, mysticism, philosophy, and social commentary…death metal elaborates on the details of extreme acts, including mutilation, dissection, torture, rape and necrophilia…”. With me?

Progressive death metal, finally, is a sub-genre of death metal, which, again according to wikipedia, “…blends the powerful, guitar-driven sound of metal with the complex compositional structures, odd time signatures, and intricate instrumental playing of progressive rock…”. Phew! That was a lot of definitions!

But it is completely useless to define music. To know what something is, you have to hear it, and with a band like Opeth, there is no one clear answer. They can sound like this...



…or even like this…



…are you thinking what a nice “normal” guy like me is doing listening to this stuff? LOL!!! It’s not that I had never heard metal before. My first exposure to metal came in college, primarily with two albums, Metallica’s “Reload” and Iron Maiden’s “Brave New World”. Inspite of the loudness, I was somehow drawn to this music. Something about the energy and violence of the performances attracted me. I don’t remember who, Marilyn Manson, or someone from the German band Rammstein, once said in an interview, that it’s good to have violence in music, because it’s like a release. It allows you to exorcise emotions that are otherwise always repressed. Besides, you’re supposed to know that something is make-believe when you listen to it, right? If you hear a song about killing people, and then decide to put that into practice, there’s something wrong with you in the first place!

But, like most people, I was initially completely put off by Opeth’s music. It was combination of the loud music, the drumming and the growling vocals, which made reach for the stop button, within 15 seconds of turning the thing on. Everytime. Everytime that is, until someone called.

My first boss, Ranjit Madgavkar, the man who wrote this amazing poem, is someone that I still idolize, and I value his opinion very highly when it comes to music. The man, after all, has almost taught me how to listen to music, and yes, that is something people need to learn as well. I was surprised when I found someone as “sensible” as him, listening to this band, which to me sounded like violent sonic slush from the Mesozoic era! That got me thinking, he isn’t the kind of man to listen to bad music. If he is listening to something, then it must have some kind of permanent artistic value. So we got chatting, and Ranjit told me, that it was the “progressive’ part of the music that was attracting him really strongly. He told me about the amazing dynamics that Opeth’s music had; rich acoustic guitars would intervene in a song that was laden with distorted guitar riffs, in-your-face guitar and drums would suddenly stop for one single, distant, spooky sounding piano. “Constantly switching from death to life” is what he said the music sounded like. But tried as I might, I just could not sit down and listen to this band for any length of time, without getting totally put off.

And then, a combination of things happened. First, something about food that my father says, occurred to me. He says, a meal, no matter where in the world you eat it, is always basically the same. It’s always a large amount of starch, acoompanied by meat, or vegetables. Rice and curry, pizza, chowmein, biriyani, sandwiches, it’s all the same. The same, I reasoned, applied to music. The same chords, scales, notes and modes, were there in all music. What differed was the logic that drove the combinations that each kind of music had, and the presentation style. The presentation style, which gives each different kind of music a different appearance, is also something that is just on the surface. That is, what decides for most of us, if we like a song, a band, or an artist. With this band, it was that presentation style that was putting me off, because it was thoroughly unfamiliar. Second, I spoke to friends, who said, just like you would expect soya sauce in pizaa, even though you liked both, it is unfair to expect love ballads from a death metal band. Every artist has his or her own style, and must be evaluated for what he or she is, and is trying to do, not how good he, or she is, in comparison to something totally different. Comparing apples and oranges, is pointless. The third thing I did, is a technique that I have evolved, with this band in particular, of getting over the presentation style, and getting to the core of the music; and that is to play the same music, over and over again, under all kinds of situations and circumstances, and force yourself to listen to it, even though you don’t like it. And old trick I have, for getting a dispassionate perspective for piece of music is turn it on in my study, moderately loud, and listen to it from my bedroom. I can’t explain what happens, but my room does something to the music, and when I lie down in bed and listen to a song playing in the distance on big speakers, I can hear things I otherwise can’t. So I heard Opeth while having my morning cup of tea, while having a shower, while reading a book, while cooking, while doing my taxes, and before I knew it, it had happened. I was humming along to the songs, nodding my head with the beat, strangely stretching in anticipation of a blast of guitars that was coming. I had done it! I had gotten over my initial knee-jerk reaction against them.

As I explored the band, I found, to my amazement, that Opeth had one completely clean album, an album that had not a single line of growled vocals, not a single distorted guitar riff, and it sounded like a classic progressive rock album from the 70’s. The album was Damnation, and I immediately fell in love with it. Even more awesome was the fact that listening to Opeth built my tolerance for a lot of the extreme metal that happens these days, and I am a happy metal-head on an exciting hunt for new bands. I guess you could say I’ve become a metal-detector. I’ve found a band called “Orphaned Land” from Israel, which is one of the few acts in the country that has both Jewish and Muslim fans. A tiny metal band has succeded where some of the greatest leaders of the world have failed. I’ve also found a band called Yakuza, which fuses jazz and progressive metal, which I think is an extremely unique concoction.

But the question remains, why should you listen to music that pisses you off? Well, for most of us, there are these albums, that Ranjit calls “instant coffee albums”, albums that you like the moment you hear them. It is human to gravitate towards something that you find instantly pleasing. But do that for long enough, and you will find yourself stuck in a rut, listening to the same kind of music over and over again. A wider perspective is necessary if you really are a “music” lover, and not just a lover of a particular genre or artist.

If you are intrigued, and want to try some Opeth, I suggest you begin with the clean album Damnation, then move on to their latest album Watershed, and then on to Blackwater Park. Happy listening!

After a long time...

Before we begin, a small warning

CIGARETTES CAN, AND WILL KILL YOU. IF YOU DON'T SMOKE, DON'T START.

Okay, so I haven't really written anything that I consider poetry in quite a while. April convinced me to write down some thoughts and feelings that were randomly zipping through my head, and I did, and thought the results were not too bad. But as always, please be kind with your comments :)

Let me explain the context a little bit. I have always, for some strange reason, found the sight of a woman smoking to be intensely erotic. That, and what goes through my head every time I see a lady light up is what this is about.

April, this one's for you...



Smoke drains into her lungs,

Her breasts swell,

A forbidden pleasure.



Perfect fingers,

Perfectly formed,

Pull away from her lips,

The moist touch.



It enters her blood,

Pupils dilate,

Breathing faster,

Quivering heart,

Something awakens.



Nailpolished fingertip taps,

Spent parts break away,

A glowing tip.

I draw closer.



A sudden gust erases the smoke as it exits her nostrils.

Her hair,

The smell,

Shampoo, sunshine, last night’s warm pillow.



Got a light?