Essential Classics
Opeth: forever
changing.Blackwater Park
MUSIC FOR NATIONS, 2001
A new millennium brought a new
sense of urgency to Opeth’s bold
musical efforts. Blackwater Park
was not just a self-evident career
peak from a young band with the
wind in their sails for the first
time, it also had a profound
impact on the entire world of
heavy music, as lengthy,
elaborate epics like The Leper
Affinity and The Drapery Falls
reintroduced progressive ideals
and creative bravery to the metal
world, while acoustic reveries like
Harvest showcased a desire to
move beyond it. Full of gorgeous
melodies but still thunderously
heavy, Opeth’s breakthrough
album is widely and rightly
revered as both a classic and
a progressive metal benchmark.Watershed
ROADRUNNER, 2008
Partly inspired by a newfound love
of Scott Walker’s avant-garde
nightmare The Drift, Opeth’s ninth
album is dark and dissonant. More
importantly, it was their most
thrillingly unhinged record to date,
with songs like the wildly
experimental The Lotus Eater and
the psychedelic plug-spiral of
Porcelain Hearts presenting
a formidable challenge to more
conservative listeners.
Despite being their last album
to feature growled vocals,
Watershed has plenty of
moments of beauty, too: opener
Coil is a blissful acoustic overture,
while the languorous,
melancholic Burden could well
be the finest song Åkerfeldt has
ever written.Opeth
From death metallers to progressive rock-metal torchbearers,
their 25-year evolution is as impressive as it is surprising.E
merging from the brutally
exuberant Stockholm death metal
scene of the early 90s, Opeth
stood apart from the start. While their
peers were inspired by Morbid Angel and
Death, singer/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt’s
crew had clearly been listening to old
prog records from the 70s. Their naïve
but fervently exploratory debut album,
Orchid, released in 1995, was a revelation
for open-minded death metal fans, but
even the band’s most devoted admirers
won’t have anticipated the extraordinary
musical journey that Opeth have taken
over the past 25 years.
After a steady stream of critically
acclaimed albums that thrilled the
metal underground, Opeth’s first major
breakthrough came with 2001’s Blackwater
Park: a majestic new blueprint for
progressive metal, still emitting echoes
of Opeth’s extreme metal hinterland
but melodic to its expansive core. The
band having rarely toured prior to its
release, the album ensured that Opeth
would steadily evolve into an impressive
live act. As a result, their popularity has
continued to grow, through numerous
line-up changes and stylistic about-turns,
and their contribution to progressiverock’s ongoing resurgence and
rehabilitation is undeniable.
At this stage, Opeth’s appeal lies as
much in their versatility as in their
adherence to a particular sound. From
the acoustic elegance of 2004’s Damnation
and the multi-faceted, Beatles-saluting
sprawl of 2005’s Ghost Reveries, to the
dark, dissonant churn of 2008’s Watershed,
the Swedes refused to repeat themselves.
Meanwhile, Åkerfeldt himself has earned
a reputation as one of the best reluctant
stand-up comedians in heavy music.
He was also the first person to perform
death metal vocals and say “c**t” on stage
at the Royal Albert Hall. Beneath the
dry humour, however, lies a ferociously
creative songwriter with instinctive
disdain for the musically throwaway.
As demonstrated on brand new album
In Cauda Venenum, the current line-up
of Åkerfeldt, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson,
bassist Martín Méndez, drummer Martin
Axenrot and keyboard player Joakim
Svalberg have gelled magnificently. No
longer tethered to a metal scene that was
never quite prepared to embrace Opeth’s
weirder indulgences, they are proof that
music can be adventurous and successful.
Dom LawsonBU
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92 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM