Swedish prog giants Opeth are back with The Last Will and Testament, their fourteenth outing and the follow-up to 2019’s In Cauda Venenum. We reviewed that album here five years ago, and it also made it into our end of year Best Of Prog list. How does this newest offering compare?
“The death growls are back” is the first thing you’ll hear when talking with Opeth fans, and folks will be fixated on that. But that doesn’t make this album a prog-death album. Sure, Mikael Åkerfeldt’s superb death growls permeate the album, but it is not accompanied by blast beats or tremolo riffing. This is a metal-infused prog rock album, and an excellent one at that.
The Last Will and Testament is a concept album – the band’s first, believe it or not. It tells the tale (across seven “paragraphs” and one song with an actual title, “A Story Never Told”) of a rich patriarch whose will, when read to his twin children, does not bestow upon them what they were expecting. It’s a compelling narrative and lyrically extremely well done.
This is a musically extravagant album, with arrangements across all eight songs feeling very grand yet cloying and dark at the same time. One can almost feel oneself sitting in the study when the will is read, and the mood and music change as each new surprise in the story is revealed. All band members contribute phenomenal parts to the songs, including new drummer Waltteri Väyrynen (the rest of the band has been in place since 2011’s Heritage), and Åkerfeldt’s production (assisted by Stefan Boman) is superb.
Standout tracks are difficult to pin down, because every song is outstanding, from the writhing, complex opening track to the poignant finish of “A Story Never Told.” Narratives are thrown into a few songs as the story unfolds, but they never feel forced or cheesy as these things sometimes can be. Instead our attention is held even tighter as we hear the tale and allow ourselves to sink into the music.
Where recent Opeth output trod ground far too close to bands like Jethro Tull, that is not the case here with one very fun exception: Tull’s Ian Anderson provides narration across the album, as well as a couple of blows on the flute. And from a different era and style, Europe’s Joey Tempest provides some backing vocals on one song. Neither guest sounds out of place or forced, bringing just the right amount of their personal touch to the songs.
The Last Will and Testament feels like the culmination of all Åkerfeldt and Opeth have been aiming for since Watershed. Every song is immaculate, with plenty of drama, dynamics, melody, and heaviness. Opeth are no longer a progressive death metal band (they haven’t been for decades), nor are they a ’70s-era prog rock band; they are their own force now, and this album is their declaration of freedom from the shackles of expectation. It will take a few listens, but patience will yield one of the year’s best prog releases.
(released November 22, 2024 on Reigning Phoenix Music)
