Heavy metal (including everything from classic metal when the genre was just forming, to 80’s metal, thrash, gore, grindcore and death metal) has long been one of my favorite kinds of music. One band of particular interest to me the last few years has been Opeth. They began as a “progressive death metal” band; equal measures death metal, albeit death metal with an unusual focus on melody, and prog rock. They really broke all the rules of the established Swedish death metal scene to carve out a huge following among metal-heads looking for something different.
Over the years the progressive side of the band has taken more and more of a dominant focus, culminating in the release of Heritage this month. The new album discards almost all traces of death metal in favor of a 1970’s progressive rock sound that has more in common with Emerson, Lake & Palmer than Miseration or Bloodbath (guitarist, singer, songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt's other, more traditional death metal band.)
Fans of prog rock will find much to like here, even if they are not fans of (or have even heard of) Opeth. The music here exhibits a wide range of influences from the above mentioned Emerson, Lake & Palmer, to King Crimson, to some nice flute work reminiscent of Jethro Tull.
Fans of the band might, however be a little underwhelmed. This is truly a complete and total shift to pure prog rock. Nary a death growl is heard as Åkerfeldt uses his clean vocal style through the entire album. While Opeth’s songs usually transition from slow and quiet to fast and blistering, here the songs change from slow and quiet to up-tempo, disjointed jazz passages. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s quite good and retains the Opeth sound (if you are familiar with the band you’d easily recognize it’s them if someone played any of the songs for you without telling you who it was.) However, without those bits of brutality, it feels like something is missing.
I won't go into a description of each song, I think you get a pretty good idea of what the music here sounds like from the other bands I've mentioned. I'll just reiterate that this is definitely an Opeth album with their trademark sound and the entire afair is well produced with a crisp, clean sound. You can also listen to the first single from the album "The Devil's Orchard" right here.
My recommendation; give the album a try, especially if death metal isn’t your thing because there is none to be found here. If you really like this, then it's probably a good indicator that you'd appreciate their older work, and Opeth might become your "gateway band" to the world of truly heavy metal.
Regardless of your past experience with Opeth, this is a very enjoyable album, with some exciting passages (the soaring guitar solo at the end of Folklore particularly stands out.) Full of long, complex songs this is a record you can sink your teeth into and will challenge even the most seasoned music aficionado.
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