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to each their own. i like them because they aren't like every other black/death/thrash blah blah blah metal band out these days. don't get me wrong, i do love me some fucking metal, but sometimes it's nice to hear theory and technique being put to use. their songs are like mini symphonies. listern to the arrangment and diversity on Ghost of Perdition it might sway you(if you can sit still for ten minutes haha)



I don't have a particular problem with long songs at all, I listen to many bands that average ten minutes or so a song. I won't say anything more about my opinions on Opeth. Like you say, to each their own.

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I can't get into black metal or any of that Norwegian stuff where they use keyboards and do that screechy type vocals.



Black metal is really an acquired taste. It's not at all well represented by the Dimmu Borgir type stuff that it is popularly associated with. The overwhelming majority of black metal bands that I listen to don't use keyboards (or use them very sparingly). Most don't come from Norway either. It's quite a difficult genre to get rewards out of as a good deal of the really great stuff isn't widely documented or is tricky/expensive to obtain. I was pretty passionate about it for a number of years, sending stupid sums of money through the mail to all sorts of countries to get what I wanted. I could cobble together a broad audio overview of black metal and put it on rapidshare if you want to give it a try.