Track Listing

1. Windowpane
2. In My Time Of Need
3. Death Whispered A Lullaby
4. Closure
5. Hope Leaves
6. To Rid The Disease
7. Ending Credits
8. Weakness

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #172691 in Music
• Released on: 2003-04-14
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Those who love Opeth for their storming death metal while loathing their prog-folk interludes should avoid Damnation like the plague. It turns out that 2002's Deliverance was so unutterably heavy because the band worked out most of their more pastoral sensibilities on Damnation, recorded at the same time. What's here is a complex and often acoustic album that proves beyond question Opeth's high regard for the sweet harmonies and post-psychedelic atmospherics of 70s rockers such as Camel, Steve Hackett and, especially, Barclay James Harvest.

This is not to say it's a retro album. For a start, those bands have been so comprehensively written out of rock history it's as if they never existed at all. Then there's the influence of Opeth's own pedigree. Steeped in the bloodier aspects of metal, singer Mikael Akerfeldt has no time for sweet love or fanciful flights of fantasy, instead remaining forever trapped in post-relationship depression, drowning in loneliness and regret. His voice, here never reduced to a satanic roar, drifts beautifully over and under the band's dark folk and hypnotic soft rock progressions, as chiming twin guitars, recalling Wishbone Ash, drop casually in and out. It's still intense and often moving--it just doesn't shout about it. --Dominic Wills

CD Description
Seventh album from Swedish progressive death metal band andtheir mellowest to date. Presented as a companion piece to 2002's much heavier 'Deliverance', it ditches almost all thetrappings of metal in favour of a haunting, reflective sound, full of organ and acoustic guitar, which has more in common with 70s psych-folk and prog rock.

Customer Reviews

Incredibly beautiful
This is my favourite Opeth album. The music sounds like it's always been around but yet somehow Opeth make it sound ethereal. Lovely lyrics and a variety of sounds blended together to make molten musical heaven. An album to get lost in. If I had more than two thumbs I'd hold them all up. But I don't. So two for Opeth.

The best quiet album ever
People think that to listen to slow quiet music sissy, but Damnation is one in a million. The music and vocals are beautiful. Mikael Akerfeldt is a true genious. Damnation is one of those albums where it`s hard to pick a favourite song, because each song has a unique feature example: to rid the diease has the brilliant keyboard solo and windowpane has the legendary guitar solo. My personal favourite is windowpane. Damnation is easily one of the best albums ever written. The only thing that could make it better is if `Harvest` was on it too.

A surprising classic
I'd listened to Opeth before, mostly on video media, and this was the first album I got hold of of theirs. It's a lot mellower than I expected it to be. There's no death, it's all prog, but so well-crafted there aren't really any moments where it lags. This is already one of my favourite rock albums - I've regained my faith that good, original rock music can still be written. I honestly can't think of any better rock album from the last decade, one of those which you listen to and think, every single one of those songs was genius. It's probably the subtlest album I own too, though at the same time there are some complex structures and new sounds here which make it psychadelic and almost hypnotic. A truly great and unique band are Opeth. I defy anyone who's into contemporary music, no matter how hardcore, to dislike this album.