Ghost Reveries
Opeth's Ghost Reveries is a Prog/Death masterstroke, becoming more simplistic in places while expanding the overall template. Having explored their split personalities in great detail on Deliverance and Damnation, Opeth pulls them back together for Ghost Reveries, and in the process they have once again upped the ante on what a Death Metal band can accomplish. While there is a bolder use of instrumentation on this release, the rhythms and time changes have simplified just a bit, giving the songs on Ghost Reveries a more direct impact. Both the harsher and softer aspects have made the band more well-rounded, from the rousing organ in "The Baying of the Hounds," to the use of Middle Eastern polyrhythms in the beautiful "Atonement." But the integration of the two styles does not mean the band has necessarily mellowed. The album opens with mere seconds of tranquility before blasting into the meat of "Ghost Of Perdition," and "The Grand Conjuration" is as dark and powerful as anything they’ve done. Opeth is a band that doesn’t rest on its laurels, and Ghost Reveries is majestic, epic music. In smaller scope, it attempts to do what Dark Side of the Moon and Physical Graffiti did for Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. This is a metal album that endeavors to move beyond its specific genre.
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Ghost Reveries (2005)
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01. Ghost Of Perdition
Ghost of Mother
Lingering death
Ghost on Mother's bed
Black strands on the pillow
Contour of her health
Twisted face upon the head![[metal-lyrics.com]](images/xparent.png "[metal-lyrics.com]")
Ghost of perdition
Stuck in her chest
A warning no one read
Tragic friendship
Called inside the fog
Pouring venom brew deceiving
Devil cracked the earthly shell
Foretold she was the one
Blew hope into the room and said:
"You have to live before you die young"
Holding her down
Channeling darkness
Hemlock for the Gods
Fading resistance
Draining the weakness
Penetrating inner light
Road into the dark unaware
Winding ever higher
Darkness by her side
Spoke and passed her by
Dedicated hunter
Waits to pull us under
Rose up to it's call
In his arms she'd fall
Mother light received
And a faithful servant's free
In time the hissing of her sanity
Faded out her voice and soiled her name
And like marked pages in a diary
Everything seemed clean that is unstained
The incoherent talk of ordinary days
Why would we really need to live?
Decide what is clear and what's within a haze
What you should take and what to give
Ghost of perdition
A saint's premonition's unclear
Keeper of holy hoards
Keeper of holy whores
To see a beloved son
In despair of what's to come
If one cut the source of the flow
And everything would change
Would conviction fall
In the shadow of the righteous
The phantasm of your mind
Might be calling you to go
Defying the forgotten morals
Where the victim is the prey
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02. The Baying Of The Hounds
I hear the baying of the hounds
In the distance, I hear them devouring
Pest ridden jackals of the earth
Diabolical beasts and roaming the forests
In wait and constant protectors
Calling you to sit by his side
Your self loathing image in his flesh
A revelation upon which you linger
His words are flies
Swarming towards the true insects
Feasting on buried dreams
And spreading decay upon your skin
His eyes spew forth a darkness
That cut through and paralyze
Casts light upon your secrets
Forced to confront your enemies
His mouth is a vortex
Sucking you into it's pandemonium
Fools you with a helping hand of ashes
Reached out in false dismay
His body is a country
The cities lay dead and beyond despair
Friends turned enemies unable to come clean
In a rising fog of reeking death
Everything you believed is a lie
Everyone you loved is a death burden
So you take comfort in him
And you are receptive to stark wishes
No longer struggling to declare your stand
You would inflict no harm to others
They are unaware of you
And in a loop of futile events
You are everything, they are nothing
Drown in the deep mire
With past desires
Beneath the mire
Drown desire now with you
Lined up verses on dead skin
"The tainted lips of the stranger
Resting upon hers"
And I embrace bereavement
Everything beloved is shattered anyway
I would devote myself to anyone
I would accept any flaws
I am too weak to resist
Tension vibrating with horror
Finding the outcast in my eyes
Pushing nerves on a puppet
Endless poison in my veins
Clean intent now tainted with death
And so, cold touch now inhumane
Every waking hour
Awaiting a reverie to unfold
And now they are calling me
Louder by the minute
The baying of the hounds
Calling me back to my home
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03. Beneath The Mire
Haunted nights for halcyon days
Can't sleep to the scraping of his voice
Nature's way struck grief in me
And I became a ghost in sickness
Willingly guided into heresy
Beneath the surface, stark emptiness
And you'd pity my conviction
Whereas I thought of myself as a leader
You'd cling to your pleasant hope
It is twisted fascination
While I'd ruin the obstacles into despair
And I'm praising death
Lost love of the heart
In a holocaust scene memory
Decrepit body wearing transparent skin
Inside, the smoke of failure
Wept for solace and submit to faith
In his shadow I'm choking
Yet flourishing
Master
A delusion made me stronger
Yet I'm draped in pale withering flesh
I sacrificed more than I had
And left my woes beneath the mire
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04. Atonement
Cleared the fog that was veiled around me
And blurred my sights
Suddenly, I'm no longer aching
To honor my plights
Rising moon and my skin is peeling
Past undone
Suddenly, I can't justify
What I had become
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05. Reverie / Harlequin Forest
Into the trees
Past meadow grounds
And further away from my home
Baying behind me
I hear the hounds
Flock's chasing to find me alone
A trail of sickness
Leading to me
If I am haunted
Then you will see
Searching the darkness
And emptiness
I'm hiding away from the sun
Will never rest
Will never be at ease
All my matter's expired so I run
There falls another
Vapor hands released the blade
Insane regrets at the drop
Instruments of death before me
Lose all to save a little
At your peril it's justified
And dismiss your demons
As death becomes a jest
You are the laughing stock
Of the absinthe minded
Confessions stuck in your mouth
And long gone fevers reappear
Nocturnally helpless
And weak in the light
Depending on a prayer
Pacing deserted roads to find
A seed of hope
They are the trees
Rotten pulp inside and never well
Roots sucking, thieving from my source
Tired boughs reaching for the light
It is all false pretension
Harlequin forest
Awaiting redemption for a lifetime
As they die alone
With no one by their side
Are they forgiven?
Stark determination
Poisoning the soul
Unfettered beast inside
Claiming sovereign control
And now the woods are burning
Tearing life crops asunder
Useless blackened remains
Still pyre smoldering
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06. Hours Of Wealth
Found a way to rid myself clean of pain
And the fever that's been haunting me
Has gone away
Looking through my window
I seem to recognize
All the people passing by
But I am alone
And far from home
And nobody knows me
Never heard me say goodbye
Never shall I speak to anyone again
All days are in darkness
And I'm biding my time
Once I am sure of my task I will rise again
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07. The Grand Conjuration
Majesty
Faithful me
Pour yourself
Into me
Wield your power
Martyr's price
Stare me down
To the ground
The eyes of the devil
Fixed on his sinners
Slake my thirst
Eternal wealth
Heathen key
Round my neck
This poetry
Our blasphemy
Know the sounds
Of infamy
The hands of Satan
Assembling his flock
Pale horse rider
Searching the earth
Whispered conjuration
A belief takes form
Choking hand tapping
The veins in your throat
His orders in your mouth
A decree for domination
Beneath the tides of wisdom
Spins the undertow of hate
Injected seeds of vengeance
Usurper's eyes of the powerless
Clean path to his kingdom
Beckoning in the mist
(The grand conjuration)
Tell my why
Love subsides
In the light
Of your wishes
Say my name
Ease the pain
Clear the smoke
In my head
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08. Isolation Years
There's a sense of longing in me
As I read Rosemary's letter
Her writing's honest
Can't forget the years she's lost
In isolation
She talks about her love
And as I read
"I'll die alone"
I know she was aching
There's a certain detail seen here
The pen must have slipped to the side
And left a stain
Next to his name
She knows he's gone
And isolation
Is all that would remain
"The wound in me is pouring out
To rest on a lover's shore"
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09. Soldier Of Fortune
[Deep Purple cover]
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