Album Review: Opeth - In Cauda Venenum

Opeth is beyond frustrating, and it doesn't even have much to do with them. I've said this before, but I'll reiterate; I was supportive of the idea of dropping the death metal from their sound. That was the direction I was hoping Opeth would go, but the way by which they did it has been rather flaccid, recreating prog rock of the 70s in a boring way, and no longer sounding much like Opeth. That would be disappointing in and of itself, but it's made even worse because we have Soen, who on their two most recent records have grabbed the thread Opeth left behind, and pulled on it to weave their own sound which is exactly what Opeth should have done as they moved forward. Suddenly, Opeth not only no longer rocks, but they aren't the most Opeth-ian modern Opeth. To have your identity usurped, and improved upon, is the sort of thing that makes me wonder what I'm supposed to think of Opeth.

With their latest entry in their classic prog phase, the answer is made perhaps harder by the very nature of the record, which was written and recorded in Swedish, then translated to English for those of us who want to understand what the heck we're listening to. I feel this guarantees there will be important details lost in translation.

Let's get this out of the way first; Mikael Akerfeldt is, and has always been, a lousy songwriter. It got better for a while, but is drifting back in the wrong direction. I don't mean he's bad in the sense that he writes boring music or has bad ideas (though he sometimes does), but rather that he's a bad songwriter because far too often his idea of song-craft is to glue to completely different ideas together without even a hint of a segue. He's like a squirrel unsure which way to run when he sees a person approaching. People have long called that 'progressive', but there's a better word for it; lazy.

The two songs we were given as previews, which also happen to be the first two on the record after the three minutes of my time the band wastes, explain the dichotomy of Opeth. "Dignity" has a wonderful guitar solo at the beginning, and a rousing melody for the main hook, but it also offers no transition as it bounces from rock to acoustic, from full band to barely audible. "Heart In Hand" has less of these moments, but midway through the track we go from a nice rock song to a full-on folk number, and I can't quite figure out how we got there, because Mikael doesn't explain himself through the music.

My frustration with that tendency is more pronounced this time around, since this is probably the best album of Opeth's full-on prog period. There are a lot of beautiful pieces of music throughout this record, but they're hard to listen to if you're someone who likes things to make sense. On the plus side, this is the most cohesive their prog period has ever sounded, in terms of them knowing who they are, and what they want to accomplish. It's still a fair bit a rehash of the 70s, but it is no longer a haphazard collection of disparate sounds ("Heritage"), so lifeless as to be a lullaby ("Pale Communion"), or a weak attempt to sound heavy ("Sorceress"). This record distills all of Akerfeldt's prog loves into a single sound, which instantly makes this the definitive record of this phase of their career.

The record has its prog tangents, it's riffs that are pure Opeth, and a sense of dynamics where the heavy moments actually sound heavy again, even though they aren't, by comparison to their old days. Really, the only thing holding Opeth back is the songwriting. Look at "Universal Truth". After a decent opening section, the song completely stops. There's three seconds of silence, and then a different sound and motif come in. Why? How? What Akerfeldt is doing there is essentially channel surfing. He got bored with one idea, so he switched to another without finishing it off. I want to reach out and strangle him for this.

By the end of the intolerable sixty-nine minutes of this record, I'm where I was before this album cycle started; hopeless about Opeth's future. For a brief moment when the singles came out, I thought Akerfeldt might have found a new well of inspiration by writing in his native language, but the album bogs down and reveals the cracks in his foundation just as much as the last few have. There is still good here, but I'm not going to sift through the rubble looking for it. Not when there is so much music out there that doesn't require me testing my patience, and not when there's a band that gives me what I want from Opeth.

Middle-aged, post-divorce Opeth is not something I can relate to. Nor do I want to.