IN CAUDA VENENUM

In Cauda Venenum is the fourth Opeth album since they've drastically changed their style with Heritage, and shows their most mature effort after building it up in the last three releases. It's their heavest take on this new style, keeping the dark, sinister and folkloric atmospheric from the previous works, while also containing lots of catchy choruses and riffs. The songwriting here is impressive, very consistent and with really beautiful payoffs. After a couple of listens, I've started to enjoy a lot most of the songs.

1. Garden of Earthly Delights: It's a nice intro with some sort of psychedelia that mix some voices with an eletronic appergio remind me of Pink Floyd's On The Run.

2. Dignity: Their second single released. The songs starts with a lot of power, especially from the vocal harmony that will stuck in your head for days and the following guitar solo. It's short for the structure it has, but very proggy!

3. Heart in Hand: Their first single, and one of my favorites songs of the year. Again, it starts furiously with a duo of guitar + organ before reaching in the vocals and it's very catchy chorus. Then you have a moment of psychedelia that leads to the final act, which is a really beautiful and calm section, showing the strength and beauty of Akerfeldt vocals.

4. Next of Kin: Here the strings takes the main seat, contributing to be one of the heaviest tracks in this album. It's very dark, slow and heavy, especially towards the end with a very exotic and powerful riff.

5. Lovelorn Crime: A really beautiful piano-oriented ballad, their most beautiful song since Watershed's Burden, with a really moving guitar solo towards the end.

6. Charlatan: The song has no guitars at all, but actually three very distorted basses. This is the most close Opeth has gotten in doing djenty stuff, but at same in a very original and unique sounding way. The song then ends with some sort of spook radio speaking, which is proeminent through the whole album.

7. Universal Truth: A very moody song that switches between gentle acoustic guitar with a really beautiful orchestration and some heavier sections. It took some time for me to "dig" it, but now I love that song.

8. The Garroter: Here, Opeth tries to create a dark jazz song, which reminded me a bit of Nepenthe from Heritage. Not a favorite of mine, tbh.

9. Continuum: It starts with a remarkable drum beat followed by groovy acoustic guitars, before reaching into the explosive chorus. It has a really beautiful payoff in the end, that lead to the last song of the album.

10. All Things Will Pass: A very hypnotic drum beat goes through to the whole tracks, in a way that reminded me of Porcupine Tree's "The Sky moves sideways" middle section, but with much more weight and a darker approach. The song then ends very magnificently with a beautiful display of Akerfeldt vocals and a melancholic tone.

Overally, Mike and his band showed their most mature and well-crafted album from the "new proggy opeth". Even though, In Cauda Venenum shows lots of original ideas while retaining Opeth's essence. For their next album, however, I'd like to see a bigger shift in their sound, maybe a return to the death metal grounds while keeping the dark sinister folkloric mood? There's still a lot of uncharted territory for the band to explore!

Final rating: 9/10