When I found Teufel’s Tomb and read through the reviews I was greatly amused by the rampant use of the terms "gay" and "homosexual" throughout the many articles listed on the website. After thoroughly reading the website I came to the conclusion that Teufel and his crew had very similar tastes in music and sense of humour to mine and decided to send him a few sample reviews in the hope of being added to the reviewing team. Teufel loved the reviews I wrote and encouraged me to write more, when I confessed to him that I am a homosexual he emphatically encouraged me to use that to my benefit in my reviews. The first title he asked me to review is Opeth’s Ghost Reveries.

I’m not entirely sure why he chose me to review this album, as I made him aware that my preference was of a more extreme style of music, but after listening to Ghost Reveries I’m starting to believe he asked me to review it because if anyone is an expert on gay, it is I.

Before I begin, let me start by saying that the term "gay" is thrown around a little too liberally among metalheads and it seems as though they use the word when they, with their limited vocabulary, can’t come up with another synonym for "bad", or "stupid", or "ugly", or "unfunny", or anything else negative. We homosexuals, on the other hand, view the term differently, you see, we are quite possibly the biggest elitists of all and are the most critical human beings on the planet. We work out, we stay in shape, we are charming, we have manners and class, we dress in a manner that is actually pleasing to women rather than wearing some tattered pair of jeans and a badly faded band t-shirt from 1985. If we wanted to we could be balls deep in the rotten crotch on any given night, whereas you straighties, who toss around "fag" like a frisbee at an ultimate tournament, spend night after night posting on metal message boards about how you can’t get laid and no girls like you.

I’ve strayed a little off topic here, but long story short, gay, to me, means "of a higher standard" and Opeth’s Ghost Reveries is just really not gay, its actually very hetero as it seems to be directed more towards 15 year old goth girls looking for something new and "evil" to listen to between new Cradle Of Filth and Marilyn Manson efforts.

The album starts off with "Ghost Of Perdition" which begins like an aggressively weaker black metal effort, complete with sharp raspy snarls and dark atmosphere but breaks down into clean vocals and upbeat melodies with occasional interludes of darkness, broken up every minute or so by clean vocals and acoustic guitars.

The second track "The Baying Of The Hounds" makes no effort of being evil with the happy organ grinding, clean vocals and gentle melodies. Again, there are occasional moments where the group tries to come across as evil, but generally just sound like they’re looking to fit on some god-awful goth movie soundtrack.

The remainder of the album continues along the same basic structure mixing aggressive vocals with melodic death metal melodies and ridiculously teenage girl-oriented keyboarding with gentle vocals along with moments of acoustic tenderness turning Ghost Reveries into the perfect musical accompaniment for a made-for-teens romantic gothic thriller, or, as you neanderthal heteros would put it "really fucking gay".

To recap; if you’re a teenage girl looking for something wicked to wet your Dani Filth-loving panties to, then Opeth’s Ghost Reveries is a mint choice. If, however, you are a young heterosexual male and listen to this band, enjoy them and angrily defend them on message boards you may need to consider coming to the conclusion that you have the same taste in music as little girls and should probably start making fun of them, lest your mates start calling you queer cakes.

My personal preference in music would be something more violent and aggressive, something angry and mean that would make me want to take my 6′3" 275lbs frame into a moshpit and slam my fist into the back of some scrawny mouthy homophobic kid’s skull then stomp dancing on his unconscious bloody while a violent porngrind band screams on stage about the joys of lubeless ass sex. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m a scrawny little sissy with a lisp, although you there with the beautiful long hair, scrawny little arms and cute little butt should seriously start considering trying to look a little more masculine and tossing away your hair care products because you’re already well on your way to tossing your cellmate’s salad should you get busted smoking that joint you’ve got tucked behind your ear. Yum, new meat!

Written By: King Anus I