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The sound of the much anticipated new Opeth album Heritage is flowing through my living room and not for the first time lately. I feel very privileged to live in a time where so much progressive music of the highest quality is released, Heritage has definitely added to that fact. Heritage is the tenth studio album by Opeth and as many of the readers are probably already aware, Opeth fronted by Mikael Åkerfeldt has on this album ventured further away from the progressive extreme metal and into the realm of true progressive rock. Åkerfeldt had stated long before the release of Heritage that he was tired of what he was doing and that the forthcoming album would be something quite different. He was quite right. I am pretty sure that a lot of die hard old school Opeth fans will frown at this development. I am however also sure that a lot of old and new fans will embrace this album as well since it is excellent on its own terms. So to nail it down: no more death metal and no more growling. That does not matter, Åkerfeldt sings very good and the individual musicians play very well but what really does the trick for me is the unified feel the album has even if the smaller parts of it can feel a bit disjointed after the first listen. A lot of people will most likely think of the 70’s when thinking of progressive music and the influence by bands like Rush, Can and particularly Jethro Tull is evident. That said it is also quite evident that despite the abandonment of the death metal elements this album sounds very much like Opeth. If you are an old fan of Opeth you have most likely made up your mind about buying this album but if you are a fan of progressive music you should really buy this one. It will be available in two CD versions as well as a double-LP version. | ||||||||||||||||||
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