Looped in the Head: Benighted
Opeth has always managed to validate the beauty and grace of the concept of loss and death in their work. Laden with an overbearing sense of grief enveloped in a delicious wrap of acoustic melody, Benighted, the song by Opeth will stalk you till you slow your brisk walk to a lumber. Maybe even make you stop in your tracks, make you sit on a bench and look at the people going past you and think about the night. Transparent acoustic notes mark a stark entrance to the song and the hypnosis multiplies with Mikael’s voice.
“Come into this night, here we’ll be gone, so far away from our weak and crumbling lives”
Where night is THE bottomless abyss, THE inevitability- a realization that you’re always at its threshold is dawned upon, and grey heaviness sucks you in- astonishingly beautiful, nonetheless.“what came and distorted your sight, saw you benighted by your fright”. Close your eyes to this song and deep red dusk is most likely to blanket your soul. “Come into this night, your only home. It’s never too late to repent, suffer the loss”.
During my initial days of getting used to this piece, I have spent many moments with my earphones plugged in and my head wrapped in my arms, just to listen to every little note instead of any other world-sound. I have spent many hours with a dear friend and a bottle that turns every emotion to a mutant- in front of a plugin that’s called as a “rabbit hole” that interacts with songs. Benighted gave a new meaning to it.
And after the second chorus, past those killer acoustic riffs, when the drums the clean electric lead haunts and hurts. Only to hit you with words that mirror the helplessness in us.
“Once you're into this night all minds are stable. Forget all your needs. Lose the grip of all control” However, the album which features this song- "Still Life" moves like a story. It talks about the return of someone, or something. Emerged from the night, driven by the want to right the wrong, and arrive at the doorstep of a woman named "Melinda". But that's a different story, stored for a different post. Lets wait.