THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

Not a big Opeth fan: lots of good musical ideas, but often too drawn out (especially the mellow parts). I'm neutral on the growls, but I don't like when they are extended over multiple measures and overshadow the interesting musicianship. As a punchy contrast, growls can be awesome. I honestly have not heard an Opeth album that really grabbed me, as much as I wanted them to, so I only bought this one because of the strong reviews. Prelude over.

THIS ALBUM IS AMAZING.

Concepts albums are creative feats, but it's often about the verbal explanation. This is an exceptional concept album in that you just have to open the digipak, look at the "will" that unfolds, and then immediately map that to the structure of the album. Truly genius, in my humble opinion. The music fits amazingly to the vortex of emotions that involve end of life issues, legacies, and family feuds. I don't know what I'm being told to think about the concept, but I can feel it, and then can map it out to real situations I have dealt with in life. Having laid that foundation in the concept, if the music is legit, then any of us can get lost in it when the music begins.

And the music takes the concept to another (times 10) level. The creativity, the musicianship, the attention to detail...it's astounding, and I simply can't get enough. I'm not a sound guy from a production standpoint, but I really can't believe how awesome this album sounds. Total clarity, no obvious fade ins/outs, the ability to hear every input, regardless of how many there might be at any given point. Then I consider the composition, and the rapidity of musical ideas, often kickstarted a measure or two before you might even expect a transition, and I'm in awe of the ambition and the execution.

And then there's the musicianship. I have not followed most of the guys on this album, but it's clear that they are some of the best out there. The drummer lays down some grooves that are so funky that I don't even want to think about what my face looks like when I hear it. The guitar is so languid, and perfectly layered in places, that it's hard to believe that quality is even achievable. And then, when you think you've got this death metal band tinkering with prog figured out, a synth/key will come in and just blow my mind--it's never a solo, either, which is a common form of wankery in prog, but instead a sonic assault to shake you out of your doldrums and prepare you for the coming guitar and vocal CRUNCH. I can't imagine counting the number of chord changes on this album, as sometimes things are changing from measure to measure. Truly a bottom-up listening experience!

I imagine the primary criticism of this will be about the clarity of the influences. We all know when Haken is doing Dream Theater, or when Neal Morse is doing Gentle Giant. I don't get those types of direct links in this album. Instead, I'm lost in the creativity, but I'm then periodically pulled out of my immersion thinking: that sounds like Focus, that sounds like Symphony X, that sounds like Leprous, that sounds like Anglagaard (side note: if one had the goal of taking the Anglagaard style and tweaking it to my liking, mission accomplished), and many, many more. I suppose I liken this to being served a new dish, and although you can compare it to other incredible meals you've had before, you know that, although you're limited to your previous languages and experiences, this new adventure is altogether novel and cannot be defined by those boundary conditions.

Perhaps my best experience of buying an album with limited expectations, opening and perusing the packaging, and then simply being hooked by the music within.

I doubt I'll ever be able to write a proper review of this album as, although I own all the so called 'Newpeth' albums, nothing really connects with me much. Most modern prog stuff I can get a handle on but I struggle with this lot. I don't hear any real dynamics in the music and the typical death metal aesthetic is well up front in their music and that is just not my scene. The middle part of the album is okay , but it's just okay. There is a nice bit of fleeing flute from Ian Anderson and a keyboard solo livens it up for a brief moment but it's nowhere near enough. I don't doubt that Akerfeldt is a massive talent but it was probably time for him to fly the coup many moons ago. Difficult though when you have a money making machine and there aren't that many in prog rock nowadays.

Opeth is back with the death vocals. Mikael wanted to make a heavier album with a new drummer from an extreme metal scene. The songs have no title but numbers or paragraphs in a testament. The booklet is simply a page of a testament with some poetry written. The story is centered around a father's will that reveals the secrets of his life. If I have heard some voices in the back of my head in this album, it's not because I am crazy but because I was listening to the Blu-Ray in Surround (Atmos). I heard some menacing voices from the right and the left that sounded like they were taken from a movie, such as the voice of a devil entity, a monster, or a killer... The music of Opeth's album goes into different moods in 1 song. After some heavy guitar parts, the keyboards and piano calm things down. The music is at times brutal, disturbing, and strange but tempered with calmer passages of harp, flute, and classical tones. And Mikael shows in the 5th track his love for Middle Eastern music. In the 6th song we have such a cool keyboard solo that you wish it had lasted longer. There are also some unusual arrangements in a couple of songs when we hear clapping hands; you can see this in the 50-minute documentary.

The result is a complex and intense album with no breather until the end, with its peaceful atmosphere that reminds of Steve Wilson's song "The Raven that Refused to Sing." This is a heavier album compared to their recent releases but not compared to their first releases. It's Opeth but in a different atmosphere. One thing is sure: you can feel the emotion that Mikael had while writing this album. He says himself, "I was in a trance," and "I only make music that excites me." Yes, this is an exciting album.

Review Nº 874

As we know, Opeth is a Swedish progressive metal group founded in Stockolm in 1990. The band is led by singer and guitarist Mikael Akerfeldt despite was founded by his friend David Isberg. Their music can be described as death metal mixed with quiet passages. Often within a single song you will find the interplay of acoustic/electric guitars, as well as clean vocals/growls. Still and all over the time, the death metal influences have steadily diminished or even disapeared.

In a very short time two of my favourite prog bands released two albums, "Parasomnia" of Dream Theater and this one of Opeth. This by itself is a noteworthy event to me. But there are two things that made of this an even most important event. About Dream Theater I'll talk when I published my review here. In the case of Opeth we had the return of growls of Mikael Akerfeldt, an unexpected thing for many of us. But besides that we had also the presence of a new drummer.

"The Last Will And Testament" is a concetual album set in the post-World War I era whose last will and testament reveals shocking family secrets. It spins a yarn based around the administration of the estate of a wealthy man, replete with a seedy lawyer and an imposing patriarch. The twisting tale of family intrigue and deception is narrated across the first six tracks, before culminating in "§7" where the lawyer delivers a reading of the will to the beneficiaries. While this feels appropriately climactic, the final track "A Story Never Told" succeeds this chicanery with a real shocking clarity.

One look at the dark cover artwork of the album can be seen as a return to the old form and style of the band in the first decade of this century. Still, that isn't totaly true. It's by no means the case that Opeth negate the retro reminiscences of their 2010's. Rather, "The Last Will And Testament" can be seen as a successful attempt to bring the various phases of the band into the harmony with one to another. So, anyone who was hoping for a 180- degree turn will be disappointed. Anyone who misses the old Opeth but was also fond of the newer ones will be delighted. And anyone who is prepared to fully immerse themselves in this reading of the will with very powerful loudspeakers will be marvelously intoxicated.

"§1" is one of the heaviest tracks on the album and possibly the most known too. I love the interchange between growls and clean vocals and chunky heavy riffs and the more delicate prog rock meandering. It's a powerful opener, one of my favourite tracks here. "§2" follows a similar feel to that of the previous track. It explores familiar territory, juxtaposing aggressive death metal with mellower progressive elements. Each little movement accentuates the development of the story and music all over the track and album. It provides plenty of reminders that this band knows how to rock. "§3" is an amazing track showing the band at its most propulsive with one of the dizziest prog arrangements that Opeth has ever written. It lays the prog rock on thick with oddball rhythms, stop-start riffs and one of the album's many sleek and shreddy guitar solos. It's probably one of the most accessible songs here. "§4" offers some of most thrilling moments on the album. It ranges from almost completely hushed material to the rageful and bombastic sound so carachteristic of Opeth. Here we're immediately in that exotic prog space that sounds like Opeth and no one else. "§5" is slightly funky and incredibly creative with its Middle Eastern, flamenco and prog. Twangy acoustic guitar, angelic backing vocals and a great rhythmic foundation lay down by Mendez and Vayrynen lend to this track a unique character within the context of the album. "§6" is a track where everything fits perfectly well. These melodies, which we're not used to hearing often from Opeth, are quite prevalent in this album. There's a constant riff change, a continuous shift in atmosphere, yet it never gets boring. "§7" gives the sense the overall melodrama and story is coming to an end, even if the album itself isn't. It trades in the tension of the earlier tracks for something emocionat with big guitar riffs, organ waves and growls, all working together to be catchy. This feels like a fitting climax to such an important document. The real ending track is "A Story Never Told", a pretty ballad carried almost completely by Akerfeldt's beautiful voice. It's a gorgeous track, one of the band's best ballads in their entire career. In the end we have Akesson's brilliant solo to close this amazing work.

Conclusion: This is another amazing work from this band, maybe my favourite prog band at the moment. This guys never cesse to surprise and delight me. It's one of the most agressive and dark albums from the band, not only due to growls and concept. It's varied, well ballanced and produced. I can see some problems with some of their older fans. Probabbly they expected an album more in vein with their older stuff due to the growls. But there's no return to that form. Maybe it can be a kind of a reminiscent of "Watershed". This is a complex and intense album, a technically heavy and prog work, a real tour de force. Despite I love all tracks I particularly highlight the opener and the closer. They're two completelly diferent pieces that show the two sides of the same coin, the balance of the death metal intensity with the progressive sophistication. This is another step forward in their amazing career, another winning bet for the band.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

'The Last Will and Testament' is in many ways a look back for Opeth - the growling vocals are re-introduced in the music by band leader Mikael Åkerfeldt and the album is a concept record that follows the reading of the protagonist's last will and testament, with multiple family members in attendance of this reading, revealing long-kept and previously unknown secrets and of their family history. This is a very fascinating concept that gives way to some dramatic, dense and epic music, which is exactly what this album is all about. And while 'The Last Will?' might not be sonically invigorating but a safer embrace of what had made Opeth special in the first place, it is a brilliantly conceived and well-executed amalgamation of their more recent experiments with progressive rock and their old-school harshness and extremity, and what a better occasion to say that the listener shall be able to unpack elements from most of the band's preceding albums, like 'Sorceress', 'Pale Communion', 'Watershed', and even 'Ghost Reveries'.

The conceptual side is noteworthy here as well as the impressive performance of debuting drummer Waltteri Väyrynen and the great contributions from Jethro Tull's very own Ian Anderson. Divided in paragraphs, '§1' of the album offers a heavy prog onslaught and introduces what could be seen as a main theme here, followed by the gorgeous main riff of '§2', a more melodic entry with some spoken word from Anderson. '§3' is an interesting synthesis between 'Sorceress' and 'Watershed', while the next track keep the refined flow of the album, introducing the next big "theme", a jazzier interplay between the flute and the lead guitar, an excellent moment. '§5' is dense and precise in execution, another piece of the puzzle, which alongside the epic and mysterious '§6' (replete with flashy soloing) harkens back to the density of 'In cauda venenum'. The closing paragraph seven is technical, ominous and vivid, on display is the intuitive heavy writing of Åkerfeldt, while the closing track is a moody, mellow conclusion disclosing the aftermath of the concept's story. This is an excellently crafted conceptual work that celebrates past glories instead of attempting to bring Opeth one square ahead, still a delightful entry in an otherwise magnificent discography.

Sometimes you need to go away to get a better handle on where you come from. Every so often, a band comes along who ends up going on a musical journey far away from the style which they originally made their names with, only to return to that genre and produce some of their best material within that format thanks to the broader musical perspective and the expanded range of techniques that journey has invested them with. Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, for instance, drifted away from their early death-doom style for much of their middle career, only to produce some of their best albums in that vein once they came back to it.

Now, with The Last Will and Testament, Opeth have pulled off the same trick. For their run of albums from Heritage onwards, they've been more in a traditional progressive rock vein than the blend of proggy death metal and death-inflected prog metal that put them on the map. However, in the album preceding this one - In Cauda Venenum - echoes of heavier styles could be heard if you listened carefully, spurring speculation that they might one day make their big return to metal. That's what they have done here. Sure, it has plenty of quieter passages - but so has Still Life or Blackwater Park; unambiguously, The Last Will and Testament sees Opeth returning to the prog-death kingdom they founded, Mikael Åkerfeldt even breaking out old-school harsh vocals here and there alongside his clean vocals.

At the same time, this isn't a retreat to Opeth's comfort zone so much as it's a new departure. It's a concept album, like Still Life, but goes deeper into that territory than that album did, with an even bigger focus on presenting a narrative and even throwing in a touch of theatrical flair absent from that work. The story is all about a family who come together to hear the reading of the titular will - the final testament of their tyrannical, estranged patriarch. In that sense, bringing back the harsh vocals just plain makes sense - if you want to capture all these characters' perspectives, the more distinct voices the better. In fact, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull fame not only provides some flute contributions here and there, but also throws in some narration here and there.

But where this really offers a departure is the way that Opeth's four-album expedition into retro-prog territories has polished and refined their command of the less heavy side of their sound, with quiet moments of folk-tinged or classically orchestrated music worked in to excellent effect. Having Anderson along for the ride becomes doubly appropriate, because whilst the style here is far from retro, it's learned enough lessons of the past to truly claim to be part of a musical tradition you can trace back all the way through Anderson's pioneering work with Jethro Tull (along with Anderson's other first-wave prog peers).

Maybe you love both classic-period Opeth and their more recent prog-embracing, metal-abjuring works, in which case you don't really need this review - you're going to listen to Last Will and Testament sooner or later anyway and you'll probably enjoy it just as much as the rest of their discography. But this is also an excellent album for anyone who's pickier about their Opeth. If you loved their metal-oriented work but felt that the albums from Heritage on went in a direction you weren't inspired to follow, then this may well be a great point to get back on board, because they're offering sounds here they've allowed to lie fallow for over a decade. If, on the other hand, you came onboard with their recent work but aren't quite keen on their metal side, this might put you off - but I'd encourage you to give you a try, because this might be the "in" you needed to really get to grips with the band's metal roots.

As for me, I think it easily slots into the top tier of Opeth releases. At the very least, it's their best metal-oriented album since Ghost Reveries, and it may well be on a par with any of their other studio efforts.