As a longtime Dream Theater fan, Opeth has always been on my periphery (pun slightly intended). From the start, they were billed to me as “more metal than Dream Theater” which put me off exploring them, as I’m more interested in the progressive side of things, not the metal. Nevertheless, I felt it was only right to explore the band’s material and – over a decade ago, now – purchased Still Life and Blackwater Park, the band’s highest-rated albums. While I appreciated the band could certainly play, it was not a match made in heaven and I was discouraged from exploring further.
Then, I vaguely read that Opeth had dropped their metal side for their tenth album, Heritage. It felt like a publicity stunt, and I wasn’t interested as I already had so many bands from the 70s that I was freshly discovering at that time. It’s fair to say that I slept on something pretty amazing, as I didn’t even attend their concert when they came to Zagreb in 2022; I just didn’t know any of their songs so I wondered if it would even be worth it. What a fool I was.
Opeth’s frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt had slowly been falling into my orbit even without the band. In 2012 I reviewed the intriguing Storm Corrosion, his collaboration with Steven Wilson; in fact, I’m set to review the re-release too. Two years ago, I reviewed his delightfully eclectic soundtrack for the Netflix TV series Clark. And this year, I was astonished to read he was a big fan of 70s prog-flamenco group Carmen, praising their first album specifically. As much as I’d tried to resist listening to Opeth, there were simply too many cosmic signals telling me to start listening to them.
A friend of mine who had hyped up Opeth to me for years convinced me to give them another try and I decided to pick up the reins and review The Last Will and Testament, the band’s 14th album, and the one that has reportedly added the metal back to the group’s formula, after more than a decade without death growls. Are we really rating music on whether it has death growls or not?
I decided to do my research first. Had Opeth really dropped the metal for Heritage? By jingo, yes they had. In fact, they’d created an intoxicating, delicious style of music that seemed very in line with the kind of music Wilson was also creating at that time, music that made me very happy indeed. I listened to the next pair of albums as well and was delighted with what I heard. Now that Opeth were apparently harking back to their roots, was I about to be disappointed again? Had I become a fan too late?
Fortunately, the answer to both those questions was a resounding “no”. The Last Will and Testament sees the band losing none of their prog flair and technicality, whilst adding in crushing riffs and timbres that are sure to satisfy metalheads everywhere. This concept album about a last will and testament being read – revealing all sorts of dark, shocking secrets about a wealthy, conservative post-WWI family – is split into seven ‘paragraphs’ and a coda. This is why the songs don’t have conventional names, instead just the section sign § (which I wasn’t familiar with), followed by the song’s number in the running order. This can make discussing the songs a little confusing, but I’m sure fans will be able to get used to it. As an aside, I always thought the paragraph sign was ¶ (also known as a pilcrow), but what do I know?
I’d already heard the Zappa-esque intricacies of §1 from the band’s single and was cautiously optimistic; when I discovered that the rest of the album was just as crushingly complex and innovative, I breathed a sigh of relief. The seven paragraphs really are all thriller, no filler, although there are points that deeply satisfied me as a prog lover such as the time-changing intro to §3 or the instrumental section of §5. The songs segue into each other, so it’s hard to keep them separate in my mind, but it’s not really an album I can imagine listening to without doing it from start to finish.
I don’t want to give the impression that this album is a monotonous slab; the band know how to use contrasting dynamics to their advantage, with quiet sections that usually feature the sound of some vintage keyboard, further satisfying the prog lover in me. Even more vintage is the presence of the one and only Ian Anderson who narrates, occasionally sings and even joins the band on the flute. While most of the music is in time signatures only a trained mathematician could count, there are some expanses where the band find the time to slow down and groove on a solid riff in 4/4, such as the outro of §7, or even in 6/8 – thinking of the melodic album closer (and only song with a name) A Story Never Told.
Former drummer Martin Axenrot finished his 16-year tenure with the group over a disagreement about COVID vaccines, making way for the much younger Waltteri Väyrynen of Finland. At just 30, he’s younger than the band itself, but he fits in so well that you would have thought he’d been there from the start. According to the afore-mentioned friend of mine, he’s never been in a prog band; once again, you wouldn’t know it, because his prog chops are phenomenal. Watch him play through §3 to see for yourself.
As a Dream Theater fan, I almost wept when I heard this album; why can’t my American heroes be this innovative when a band just five years younger than them can still sound so fresh and interesting? Dream Theater’s song formula is getting pretty stale by now while the music by Opeth is anything but. The sense of musical exploration is palpable, and I’m sure the more metal-oriented fans are already thrilled by this return to form, death growls (of which there aren’t really that many) and all. I’m simply happy that it is both prog and metal in equal measures, and is uncompromisingly challenging all the way through.
TRACK LISTING
01. §1 (5:56)
02. §2 (5:33)
03. §3 (5:10)
04. §4 (7:00)
05. §5 (7:29)
06. §6 (6:03)
07. §7 (6:30)
08. A Story Never Told (7:11)
Total Time – 50:52
MUSICIANS
Mikael Åkerfeldt – Guitars, Lead & Backing Vocals, Zither, Mellotrons, Percussion & FX, String Arrangements
Martín Méndez – Bass, Backing Vocals
Fredrik Åkesson – Guitars, Backing Vocals
Joakim Svalberg – Piano, Hammond Organ, Mellotrons, Fender Rhodes & Moogs, Backing Vocals, FX
Waltteri Väyrynen – Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
~ With:
Ian Anderson – Flute (4,7 & 8), spoken word (1,2,4 & 7)
Joey Tempest – Backing Vocals (2)
Mia Westlund – Harp (4)
Mirjam Åkerfeldt – Spoken Word (1)
London Session Orchestra – Strings
Dave Stewart – String Arrangements
ADDITIONAL INFO
Record Label: Moderbolaget / Reigning Phoenix
Country of Origin: Sweden
Date of Release: 22nd November 2024
