LAMENTATIONS: LIVE AT SHEPHERD BUSH EMPIRE 2003

Lamentations captures a truly excellent Opeth live performance. Recorded in September 2003, this meant that the gig took place around a year after the sessions which yielded the Deliverance and Damnation albums. The entirety of Damnation - Opeth's left-turn into quieter progressive rock - is served up here, followed by a selection of six louder tracks, three from Deliverance and three from Blackwater Park, providing a rounded view of Opeth's musical universe as it stood in the early 2000s.

With prior eras of the band's work pushed out of sight entirely, this finds Opeth at the cutting edge of their distinct style of progressive metal, steeped as it is in drawing on progressive rock and extreme metal techniques rather than following the trajectory of past prog metal practitioners such as Dream Theater. This certainly represented a fresh and eye- opening offering for prog and metal fans alike in the early 2000s, and remains potent to this day.