OPETH’s Blackwater Park Is 23 Today And We Really Need An Expanded Reissue

Opeth released their iconic Blackwater Park album on March 12, 2001 and it stands as one of their best to date (and one of the best metal albums of that decade). Blackwater Park nails such a specifically gloomy, murky, almost ghostly atmosphere that no other body of work has ever articulated nearly as well. It’s almost like Blackwater Park is haunted.

And look, I could sit here all day and talk about how much I love Blackwater Park. Who couldn’t? It even came up on a drive with a friend last weekend – how the riff in the title track after the acoustic interlude around 1:50 might be one of the beefiest in all of metal. But I digress. I’m here to talk about the fact that we need a Blackwater Park reissue that at the very least finally gives “Still Day Beneath The Sun” and “Patterns In The Ivy II” the proper love they deserve.

Blackwater Park was reissued as a 2CD set in 2002 by KOCH Records with both the aforementioned songs on the second disc alongside the music video for “Harvest”. The duo of songs were also issued as a 7″ named Still Day Beneath The Sun by Robotic Empire in 2003. You can get the 2CD set on Discogs cheap-ish when they’re available (two are now), though the 7″ generally goes for a fair bit.

This all comes back around to the headline – the world really needs a Blackwater Park reissue that actually acknowledges both those songs. Sure, they’re largely Mikael Åkerfeldt and an acoustic guitar, but they’re fantastic tracks that have warranted covers on YouTube over the years and clearly have enough fans that people are constantly buying ’em out on sites like Discogs. The recordings don’t exactly match the production of Blackwater Park, but they’re still beautiful songs that really further the vibe found on the album interlude “Patterns In The Ivy”.

So… maybe we could get a 25^th anniversary set of Blackwater Park that gets these songs thrust into the larger Opeth limelight? Maybe even include a full live set from that time if anything decent exists, or even some demos too. Especially the 2001 shows – the setlist for the band’s North American tour was incredible, doubly so for their European dates.

I know we’ve gotten the 20^th anniversary reissue of Blackwater Park (as seen above – those are my personal copies of it and the 7″), but all that offered outside the album was a live version of “The Leper Affinity”. And frankly, I think a more expansive reissue of Blackwater Park should be done. Blackwater Park is way too good, and a bigger reissue should definitely start with including the Still Day Beneath The Sun songs.