Opeth released their fourteenth album, «The Last Will & Testament», on November 22, 2024 via Moderbolaget / Reigning Phoenix Music. A concept album about the will of a patriarch and the secrets it reveals after his death — their darkest and heaviest record in years, which also marks the return of Mikael Åkerfeldt’s death metal vocals after 2008’s «Watershed».
Country: Sweden
Genre: Progressive Death Metal
For fans of: Opeth (Ghost Reveries, Watershed), Gojira, Mastodon
The listen
The record is a story full of dramatic tension: seven of the eight tracks are numbered paragraphs of the will, read in the presence of the deceased’s three children. Jethro Tull legend Ian Anderson plays the departed with narration and flute, while Europe’s Joey Tempest features on the vocals of «§2». «§1» opens with an atmosphere of frozen, gurgling fear, with time-signature shifts and deadly aggression.
«§4» begins with Åkerfeldt in roaring colossus mode, then evolves into delicate chamber music with Anderson’s flute hovering over a spectral haze of guitars. «§5» is a display of power for drummer Waltteri Väyrynen, while «§6» is the record’s catchiest track, with an earworm chorus and a breathtaking guitar solo from Fredrik Åkesson.
The closer comes with «§7», a gothic, atmospheric sprawl full of whispers and avant-garde touches, and «A Story Never Told» — one of Åkerfeldt’s most beautiful ballads, with another stunning solo. Opeth don’t look back: the growls returned because the music demanded them, and the result is the most inventive, progressive and demanding record of their career — «this year, nobody else comes close», as Blabbermouth wrote at the end of its review with the absolute 10/10.
Tracklist
1. §1
2. §2
3. §3
4. §4
5. §5
6. §6
7. §7
8. A Story Never Told
See also
Gojira – L’Enfant Sauvage · MASTODON – Marrow Deep
