Review by Adam M on April 14, 2026.

This is a great album that pushes the band forward and makes them stand alone.  It is similar in nature to the last one.  This is a bit more focused on pushing the band’s sound forward.  There are a lot of quiet atmospheric moments, but the heavy ones outweigh them.  The entire affair is very atmospheric and has a lot of emphasis on creating a nice mood.  There are very few weak moments and the entire affair is laden with emotion.

The musical performances are strong with good guitar playing and a heavy use of harsh vocals along with the clean ones to make for a good instrumental performance.  The variety of dynamics makes this another well=rounded entry into the band’s catalogue and an interesting album indeed.  There aren’t many faults with the musicianship and add in good drumming and the musical performances shine.

The problem I’m having with the disc is that it is somewhat more refined than previous releases and does not have as many adventurous segments as before.  The entire affair is somewhat more straightforward and does not have the same level of ambition as early releases.  Yet it is more refined and has a great feeling of being rounded out to perfection.

All in all, this was a very solid release with a good production job and a feeling of being one of the band’s notable releases.  It is more focused upon creating a solid atmosphere and has the ability to be crisp and performed nicely.  This is shown throughout and the overall feeling of the music is that it is well=constructed.

Rating: 7.7 out of 10

Review by Adam on May 27, 2001.

Mere words cannot describe how pleased I am with this disc. The atmosphere, production, and quality of the music and sound are top notch. Plus its over an hour in length! If there is one thing to love about Opeth, it is the fact that you always get your moneys worth. The band, once again, delivers nothing short of pure musical genious with a flawless production quality along with their own unique style.

In the past Opeth have tried to stick as many different vibes into one song as possible and while they still have very complex and diverse compositions, you can actually hear some refrains and repetitions of riffs in songs which is a nice touch to the overall feel of the record. You have more or less "songs" here, and each of the eight tracks, one being an instrumental, have that same power and determination to either brutalize or soothe or even both in the same track.

With songs like Harvest, which is a completly acoustic track, you see the band going for a normal verse and chorus structure but still keeping their own fresh style intact. For the most part, this is a continuation of where the band was going with Still Life and My Arms Your Hearse where the evil deathlike vocals do a constant balancing act with the more developed clean vocals. The harmonies pulled off on this cd are excellent and the leads which open tracks such as The Drapery Falls are eerily beautiful and atmospheric.

Opeth have outdone themselves yet again. Just when you think they could not think of anything else as powerful as what they had previously done, they set out to prove you wrong with a release like this. This cd is brilliant! What else can I say? If you are an Opeth fan, you should already have this, but for all you skeptics out there this is a great way to discover, firsthand, their complete and utter brilliance!

Bottom Line: In one word, Blackwater Park is Epic. It is everything a cd should be. I highly recommend any metal fan or fan of music period to pick up this cd!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Review by Maciek on May 6, 2019.

I've recently noticed a significant influx of bands implementing metalcore and deathcore elements in their music. And it really is a nice addition, sort of refreshing breeze, especially when added to quite brutal branches of metal and I'm speaking really brutal, pig-squealing-brutal metal. I like that it creates a mix of melodic metal and almost grind core. 

And if there is any new subgenre around we can be sure that United Kingdom will provide their own version of it sooner or later. And in this case, it's Ingested from Manchester. Their version of brutal death metal mixed with deathcore most of all has really good sounding guitars. This is probably the first thing most worth mentioning - production. Guitars are very low tuned and distorted, but at the same time their sound is very selective. I'm sure that having guitarist from Cryptopsy helping you producing it helps creating album with wall of guitars. 

But apart from brutal elements you can surely hear some calmer passages, during which musicians show that they also know how to compose pleasant melodies. The vocals range from shrieks through screams to low growls, obviously with appropriate effects to make every sound deep and more spacious. The band is definitely taking inspiration from the best in each genre, each track has something that reminds of some other band, "The Empyrean Creed" for example has some sounds that remind me of Abhorrent Decimation. The drum work is really top class, you can hear plenty of blast-beats, bass drums are also very good in keeping the pace of each track interesting, switching between furious blasts and more head-banging tempos. 

The basic construction of this EP is that first track is just regular track, presenting the whole variety of tempos that can be found on this release. The grind-core-ish slams co-exist within this track with deathcore rhythms in the style of Hatebreed for example. Then second track with peaceful intro, transforming into Dark-Funeral-paced wall of drums and guitars. I think that I could also compare it to latest Numenorean album, "Adore" and some riffs also remind me of Aversion's Crown's "Xenocide". Same theme from track 2 carries on in track 3, but in a sort of acoustic version. Then on some versions last track "The Empyrean Creed", the one that reminded me of Abhorrent Decimation. And if you have 5-track version, the last track, "Erotic Depravity" closes the EP with another presentation of skills in playing extremely heavy and extremely fast metal, with a little hint of Cannibal Corpse school of metal. 

This is a material presenting good variety of elements from the most extreme subgenres of metal, there are echoes of death metal school similar to Katalepsy, some parts are similar to Dyscarnate and all the bands I mentioned above. And everything delivered in a package with interesting melody lines, frequent tempo changes and most of all high technical skills. Good position and I can't wait to hear more, hopefully on some full-length album. 

Rating: 8 out of 10