Opeth balance the Prog and the Death Metal and throw in a dark tale to boot.

Release Date: 22nd November 2024

Label: Reigning Phoenix Music

Format: CD / Vinyl / Digital

goalpost shifters

Opeth’s fourteenth album finds the illustrious Swedes nudging their ever shifting goalposts in a darker and heavier direction. In both cases, the result is one that must – finally – surely – satisfy their legion of fans from the Death Metal to the Prog lovers.

Presented in a sleeve that presents a solemn and ominous image, there’s a heaviness with the subject matter too. The narrative travels back to the Twenties and, as the title foretells, the reading of a recently deceased man’s will to an audience of his surviving family members. There’s a twist naturally, as the set brims with haunting melodrama, shocking revelations and as Mikael Åkerfeldt explains: “this felt like I could make a story about real evil, and about human behaviour.”

“I have become quite interested in family, and the idea that blood is not always thicker than water,” he adds, the seeds of an idea explored briefly on the last album In Cauda Venenum in the song Universal Truth now given room to grow and reach a logical conclusion.

power struggles

The power struggles between siblings are played out in a perfect combination as the lyrical concept is cloaked with the sinister sobriety of an Opeth soundtrack in seven sections numbered §1 to §7, plus the finale of A Story Never Told. The sinister Gothic story of deceit, recrimination and betrayal declares its hand within the first  few moments, identifying as undeniably Opeth and when least expected, the prayers of the Opeth diehards are answered as the vocal growls return. Time has been kind to the harsher side of the Åkerfeldt voice and by his own admittance, it’s sounding pretty good after a period of r&r. Perfect for portraying the voice from beyond the grave that also finds a home in the solemn tones of Tull’s Ian Anderson.

Aided by cameos from Europe’s Joey Tempest and most significantly, Anderson (both musical and stately spoken word), the set represents a consummate refinement of Opeth’s epic Progressive and Dark Metal sides. An album doused with a clutch of highlights is epitomized by the mid-point where §4 heads from Demonic drama to Anderson flute decoration and into an inspired and dramatic passage where the guitar solo provides one of the standouts. §5 dips, ducks, dives and dodges in a testing time signature as the quintet play their little hearts out and there’s an impressive debut from new drummer Waltteri Väyrynen – just listen to him in §6 where he’s almost soloing through the track.

more questions than answers

A Story Never Told brings a pastoral closure with sweeping crescendos and a restrained but emotional guitar solo to fade. It proves a reflective (without wanting to reveal tooo much) epilogue that provides more questions than answers. Although their aim is to never stand still and always move forward, you could forgive Opeth lingering around these waters a little longer.

Here’s §1:

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