Opeth: Mikael Åkerfeldt's Long Goodbye to Growling

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In 2011 one of the best death metal bands in the world put out an album with no death metal on it, and split its own audience clean down the middle. That album was Heritage, the band was Opeth, and the man who did it on purpose was Mikael Åkerfeldt, following his own taste off a cliff he had been walking towards for years.

Opeth formed in Stockholm in 1989, and Åkerfeldt took the wheel early, becoming the songwriter, guitarist, lead vocalist and guiding intelligence of the whole project. For roughly two decades they were the most sophisticated death metal band going — a group that treated brutality and beauty as equal partners, and swung between them inside a single ten-minute song. That combination is the thing to understand about Opeth, because it explains both the greatness and the eventual divorce with half their fans.

Opeth on vo.rs

Opeth: Mikael Åkerfeldt's Long Goodbye to Growling