WATERSHED

Opeth's Watershed is aptly titled, because it follows the departure of two long-standing members of the band: Peter Lindgren had been on every Opeth album up to this one, whilst Martin Lopez had provided drumming from My Arms, Your Hearse onwards. New drummer Martin Axenrot had appeared on The Roundhouse Tapes, whilst this would be the first release to feature Fredrik Åkesson on guitar, though he clearly missed no time in gelling with the rest of the group; he even gets a songwriting credit on Porcelain Heart, which is notable given how much of Opeth's material by this point was written solely by Mikael Åkerfeldt.

Still, the bulk of the composition work here is still done by Åkerfeldt, so this is very much an evolution of the Opeth approach rather than a radical shift in it. Nonetheless, there's still original surprises here and there; Nathalie Lorichs provides a haunting guest vocal on album opener Coil, and the addition of classical wind and string instruments adds a certain spice to things. The air of the spookier side of 1970s prog is still present here and there - Per Wiberg breaks out some Mellotron here and there which is outright haunting, and Burden sounds like a mixture of mid-1970s Pink Floyd and King Crimson's Epitaph - whilst the death metal aspects of the band's sound are as frantic and powerful as ever.

Whilst I would not put it in the top tier of the band's output, it's certainly a strong album, and a good start for a new phase in the band's existence.