Ranking Every Opeth Studio Album From Worst To Best

6. Deliverance (2002)

The follow-up to Blackwater Park, Deliverance was intended to be a double album that fully captured the band’s hellish and heavenly sides. Unfortunately, label Music for Nations felt that that was risky, so Åkerfeldt split it up into two sequential records: Deliverance and Damnation.

Unsurprisingly, Deliverance houses some of Opeth’s most unapologetically brutal music, such as its bookends: Wreath and By the Pain I See in Others. Despite being torrents of destruction, each one packs enough intricate variety to be addicting.

To be fair, though, it’s the pieces in-between that truly make Deliverance a masterclass in the genre. Specifically, the title track faultlessly weaves between gripping savagery and soothing melodies before concluding with the most mesmerizing syncopation in Opeth’s catalog.

From there, A Fair Judgment feels like an evolved take on Morningrise’s To Bid You Farewell (thanks in part to the contributions of Porcupine Tree mastermind Steven Wilson, who returned as producer).

Likewise, acoustic interlude For Absent Friends builds upon Orchid’s Requiem (while paying homage to Genesis in its title) prior to the penultimate Master’s Apprentices offsetting its intimidating rage with angelic harmonies.

All of that – and more – turns Deliverance is a tour de force of alternating techniques and temperaments.

 
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Contributor

Hey there! Outside of WhatCulture, I'm a former editor at PopMatters and a contributor to Kerrang!, Consequence, PROG, Metal Injection, Loudwire, and more. I've written books about Jethro Tull, Opeth, and Dream Theater and I run a creative arts journal called The Bookends Review. Oh, and I live in Philadelphia and teach academic/creative writing courses at a few colleges/universities.