The Swedish masters of extreme progressive metal have returned with their fifth album "Blackwater Park", and boy have I waited.

Their previous efforts are all great albums, and when I heard that Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree was going to co-produce this one I was a little worried. Ok, Steven Wilson makes great music, but Porcupine Tree isn't a metal band, so I wondered how this would sound.

Well, at 8:24 in the second song, Bleak, the smooth and beautiful gets ripped apart by dark, hateful destruction, but only for a while. Then it all ends with static noise and fades out. The comes Harvest, an acoustic piece with some of Mike's best vocals ever.

Needless to say things happen all the time; heavy, pounding, EVIL parts rip through the most beautiful of twilight shades, complex rhythms and advanced riffing breaks up into silent piano parts. And Mikael is always present, sometimes clawing and tearing at your soul, sometimes caressing and soothing you.

Everything about this album is great, the playing is superb, the melodies dance around like dark angels in the blackened cosmos, the vocals are perfect all the time, and every song is the best one on the album. Fucking A.

© 2001 daoloth