Opeth My Arms,

On their third album - and first to be released simultaneously in Europe and the U.S. - Opeth continue to refine their epic, progressive death metal style, replete with harmonized leads and acoustic passages. My Arms, Your Hearse flows logically from one composition to the next, and the mostly long songs have enough variation in texture and mood to hold the listener's interest fairly consistently.

After album (or "observation," as the band likes to call them) number eight - Ghost Reveries - Opeth could have very easily coasted, merely rehashing their sound. Instead, they opted to challenge themselves and their listeners, creating an album that can - at times - expose its true nature and scope slowly and - at other times - be jarring, as if it were turning itself inside out. Opeth take chances that many bands in the same situation would be too scared to have a go at. It's hard to say if the recent membership changes affected bandleader Mikael Åkerfeldt's writing and production, or if he was enjoying his trip down classic rock (see: Deep Purple) lane. For whatever reason, Watershed is a new benchmark for Opeth…

Opeth's debut, Orchid, was quite an audacious release, a far-beyond-epic prog/death monstrosity exuding equal parts beauty and brutality - an album so brilliant, so navel-gazingly pretentious that, in retrospect, Opeth's future greatness was a foregone conclusion. Fact is, these Swedes - with the opening cut, "In Mist She Was Standing," exceeding the 14-minute mark - laid their cards on the table at the beginning of the hand and still took the pot, so ambitious and convincing is the band's artistic vision. And while the record finds the group searching for the razor-sharp focus and prominent emotional hook put forth on the later, classic releases My Arms, Your Hearse, Still Life, and Blackwater Park, Orchid is still an exhilarating listen, with the band meshing double-time death tempos with bleak, frostbitten riffs and moodily expansive, jazz-influenced, melodic instrumental passages…

Having taken their oppressive black metal symphonies to their furious zenith with their third effort, My Arms, Your Hearse, Sweden's Opeth began deconstructing their sound on 1999's brilliant Still Life. A logical next step in their evolution, the album finds the band re-examining their unlikely fusion of progressive rock and black metal to highlight the former while staying in touch with the latter. The result is a formidable splicing of harsh, often jagged guitar riffs with graceful melodies, and the increasing use of Mikael Åkerfeldt's "clean" vocals (alternated with his ever-present death growl). This tactic only serves to spotlight the quality of Åkerfeldt's lyrics (a rarity in extreme metal circles) and, in the tradition of prior efforts, Still Life is a full-fledged concept album, which, without going into unnecessary details, centers around a tale of unrequited love for a character called Melinda…

The origins of Agalloch date back to 1995 and the disintegration of the band Aeolachrymae. As that group died, three phoenixes emerged from the ashes, Sussurrus Inanis, Nothing, and Agalloch. Mixing black metal with atmospheric textures, gothic doom, and neo-folk and post-rock touches, the Portland, OR-based group quickly developed a rabid cult following.