Top 10 Best Opeth Albums

The Top Ten
1 Blackwater Park

The atmosphere that is present in this album is both beautiful and strange at the same time! I've never experienced the feelings that these songs gave me in any other songs or in any other form of art. Mikael's growls are perfect. Riffs are well written. Everything in this album is near perfect. This has the potential to be the greatest album in metal.

If only more people could look past the growls and enjoy the songs as a whole.

Gateway album for myself and many others. When the first riff of The Leper Affinity hits, you know you've struck gold. You don't even have to like death metal to get into this album. It's an accessible and dynamic release that blends soft sounds with the brutality of the death metal genre.

What Pink Floyd was to progressive rock, Opeth is to progressive death metal.

2 Still Life

The transitions between Benighted, Moonlapse Vertigo, and Face of Melinda are absolutely impeccable. Not to mention how beautifully haunting the melodies of each song are, alongside the brutally dark, heavier parts of the album.

Additionally, unlike the Blackwater Park album, I find no material on this album to be remotely repetitive. Not one song abuses a certain measure of material for too long or becomes annoying due to unnecessary harmonics (take the song Bleak off of Blackwater Park, for example).

Overall, Still Life is an incredibly well-written album. The vocals, both unclean and clean, are phenomenal. Additionally, the instrumentals are wonderfully macabre. Together, they truly give the listener an incredible experience of the medieval conceptual story that Still Life tells.

3 Ghost Reveries

"Blackwater Park" is undoubtedly the best album to get into Opeth's sound. Once there, "Ghost Reveries" will prove to be the top of the mountain of their discography. The characteristic sound duality (harsh/clean) has never been so well balanced, as well as the vocals. Ã…kerfeldt's lyrics are sublime. It feels like they are more like Gothic poetry than simply lyrics.

Finally, the story told throughout the album is so well arranged that it will take the listener to a forest where he will meet the main character, a tormented man, desperately looking for redemption.

4 Watershed

Epic. I have never heard anything similar to this. I thought "Blackwater Park" and "Still Life" were the best metal albums ever, but they lacked something: the sensibility that "Watershed" was able to give us in every one of its tracks.

Simply awesome. Best Opeth album ever. It has some of their best ballads, such as "Burden" (makes me cry every time I listen to it) with heart-touching lyrics. Vote for this!

Every second of it just blows your mind. Nothing will ever top Watershed. Coil is an ingenious little start to the whole thing, and when Heir Apparent kicks in, I nearly lose my mind.

Then it's just epic riff after epic riff for the rest of the album.

5 Morningrise

"Morningrise" was surely a step up from an already awesome debut in "Orchid." The overall talent level had gone up a notch, the prog rock acoustics continued to evolve within the structures of the songs, and the songs themselves continued down an even darker, more bleak, more hopeless-feeling path.

The biggest criticism of this album is how long and drawn-out the passages are. Some fat trimming would have done a lot of good, which is exactly what Opeth accomplishes with its subsequent releases "My Arms, Your Hearse" and "Still Life."

6 Deliverance

I love all their albums, and I've got to say it's a very close call, but Deliverance is my favorite by them. It's extremely underrated. This album boasts some of my all-time favorite Opeth songs, being Deliverance (which is my favorite), A Fair Judgment, and Master's Apprentice.

And don't get me wrong, Wreath and By the Pain are fantastic too, but the other three are on a whole new level.

I would say this album is tied with "BWP," but since it's a bit lower, I'll vote for it. This album is just amazing. I don't see the negatives in it. It has a lot more "Death Metal" feel in it, but even then, "A Fair Judgement" and "For Absent Friends" are phenomenal and have no screaming.

This album has some of the best guitar work that Opeth has put out and is just a musical masterpiece!

7 Damnation

This is Opeth's most beautiful album. It focuses solely on the calmer parts of their sound, and it works very well. Songs like Windowpane and In My Time of Need are fantastic and, while not as versatile in their sound as songs like The Moor and Drapery Falls, show a different side of this band.

The small difference in votes between each album (of course, without Blackwater Park that is the best) shows how good Opeth is because they are great in every single album.

Fantastic album. Very dark and haunted atmosphere from start to finish. The opening track 'Windowpane' is among some of Opeth's very best material.

8 My Arms, Your Hearse

April Ethereal is Opeth's best song, and Demon of the Fall and When are catchy as well. This album deserves to be in the top 3, alongside Still Life and Blackwater Park or Orchid.

In my opinion, their best work to date, considering the sound quality and mixing, the story, and the complexity of every song on the album. The structure is clearly defined.

From Prologue to Epilogue, it's just one fantastic and breathtaking musical journey.

This, in my humble opinion, is Opeth's most balanced effort. It's raw and polished, deathly and proggy. Highlights: April Ethereal and Demon of the Fall.

9 Orchid

Normally, I would say My Arms, Your Hearse is the best album, but Orchid is my favorite for more personal reasons, so my vote is going here. Not only was it my first Opeth album, but it was also my first death metal album ever! It really got me into it. It was also my first metal album that was a subgenre of extreme and black metal, which got me into those.

Before, I was like a noob who listened to Metallica, The Beatles, and Kiss, but this helped me find the much better metal bands and genres. Opeth is still my favorite band ever to date.

Thanks for reading my story if you read it, and if you like this kind of stuff, follow @ChopstxMaster on Twitter!

10 Pale Communion

Pale Communion deserves a higher place on this list than its fellow prog rock albums, Damnation and Heritage. Pale Communion may not have the same initial, striking beauty that Damnation possessed upon release, but the diversity, production, and overall focus make Pale Communion a more definitively Opeth album. Cusp of Eternity and Moon Above, Sun Below are the two highlights, with Voice of Treason and Faith in Others also being major standouts.

Give this album some time to truly grow on you. It gets better with every listen.

The Contenders
11 Sorceress

As an Opeth newbie, I'm shocked this album is so low. It's bloody great. Sorceress sounds really beautiful and epic all the way through.

I suppose if they have done this many supposedly better albums, I've got a lot of fun ahead.

12 Heritage

I have never once voted, much less commented on anything on this site before. I felt compelled to urge you to give this album a real chance because it is an absolute masterpiece.

I love all of Opeth, and Blackwater Park and Still Life are masterpieces of their own, but there is absolutely no reason Heritage should be #12 on this list.

Underrated album, one of their best ones. This music comes from the same deep place as all their previous stuff, but only in a different manner, and that makes it unique.

13 In Cauda Venenum

This is a serious grower! It's definitely their best album in the last decade. Heck, it's up to par with Blackwater Park and their other death metal masterpieces.

I didn't get it at first, but I love it now.

By far their best. In fact, the best album of the 21st century, after Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly. Give this some more time.

One of my favorite Opeth albums. Listen to the Swedish version because it is a masterpiece!

14 Live at the Royal Albert Hall
15 The Roundhouse Tapes

Amazing live album. This album got me into Opeth. If you don't like Opeth, this album will get you, trust me.

It shows everything Opeth has to offer.

16 Lamentations: Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire
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