Opeth – Pale Communion

People love to rag on this album or forget it a-la 'meh, it's another one' but I actually really enjoyed it. The ones immediately before and after are pretty stupid, so this one doesn't really get a fair chance I feel. I'm a pretty oldschool opeth fan, since MAYH but I had long-since lost interest in em by the time this came out, not cuz I'm a death metal purist, but after the 1-2 punch that was the pretty bland GhostR album and the flat out shit Waterc̶l̶o̶s̶e̶t̶shed, I just thought they were done, so I bought Pale for sheer morbid curiosity and surprisingly I actually find myself replaying it now as often as MornRise.

Track 8 is especially nostalgic, but 2, 3 & 7 are also excellent. And Goblin is plenty fun... And River has great vocals and keyboards...... And track 1 which sounded like a strange different band at first but now is so memorable it's stuck in my head. The ending of track 7 is superb. And the solo in track 2. I better stop, but heaps of good moments here really, not a crap song in sight. Incredible mixing/mastering too (CD & digital versions)

Pale communion is the best album of the nO-death-peth albums, by a looooooooong shot, even beats Damnation actually, and side note: the Royal Albert Hall live album was also really energetic too, with actually good growling for a change and an excellent setlist + Last Will is quite nice with its sorta cinematic feel - maybe opeth are interesting again afterall.

I can confirm that this version sounds crisp, clear and beautiful. If you come across this one, it's the one to buy! It's also my favorite Opeth record, so I'm happy I don't a version free from the noises reported on the previous versions.

At the time, I got the replacement blu-ray disc, but now I don’t know how to tell the difference!
There is a response on the web that quotes some numbers, but they don’t match mine :(.

I find it quite disappointing that the dowload code expired only 2 years after the release of the album... I bought mine new a few years back & wanted to redeem it digitally but no...
Either way, good pressing.

Add my name to the list of folks disappointed in this one. I compared mine with the UK needledrop on the Archive and its night and day. The UK just burst out of my speakers !!! This one sounds like there's a cotton ball on the stylus. No excuse for this poor quality...

I have the variant 2 of Eu pressing ,no problem here absolutly beautiful amazing sound on this one,can really recommend this

Another person who can confirm that this sounds awful. Surface noise and distortion

Great album but pretty bad pressing. My copy doesn’t have much surface noise, but there is an awful lot of distortion.

Anyone else get a box that has two solitude 7" and missing var kommer??

Excellent mastering for CD (Paschal Byrne)

DR11

If you don't want the background noise of poorly made vinyl, the cd version of this record is very good.