- Country: Sweden
- Style: Progressive death metal
- Label: Moderbolaget / Reigning Phoenix Music
- Release date: 22 November 2024
For the better part of fifteen years, the one question every Opeth interview came back to was whether Mikael Åkerfeldt would ever growl again. Since Heritage in 2011 the band had lived in the world of seventies-flavoured progressive rock, and In Cauda Venenum in 2019 seemed to confirm that the death metal chapter was closed for good.
The Last Will and Testament answers the question in the first minutes. The growls are back, and so is a heaviness the band had not reached for in a long time. But this is not a nostalgic return to Blackwater Park. The harsh vocals are woven into everything Opeth learned in the years without them: Mellotron, Hammond organ, strings arranged with Dave Stewart, and sudden turns into folk and jazz.
It is also their first true concept album since Still Life. The story is set after the First World War and follows the reading of a wealthy patriarch’s will and the family secrets it drags into the light. The songs are titled as paragraphs of that document, “§1” through “§7”, before the closing “A Story Never Told”. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull reads parts of the will and plays flute, Europe’s Joey Tempest sings backing vocals on “§2”, and Åkerfeldt’s daughter Mirjam speaks on the opening track.
It is the first Opeth album with drummer Waltteri Väyrynen, and his playing gives the heavier passages a sharper edge than anything the band did in the 2010s. “§3” is fast and knotted, “§4” turns on Anderson’s flute, and “A Story Never Told” closes on a softer, more melodic note.
Manufacturing delays pushed the release from October to late November, just in time to crash the year-end lists. It deserved a place on all of them.
Best tracks:
§1
§3
§4
A Story Never Told
Author’s rating: 9.2/10
