Opeth
The Last Will And Testament

We thought Opeth had definitively and irreversibly subscribed to progressive rock, especially the fan not particularly fond of the new direction had thrown in the towel and shelved any hope of seeing Opeth play the old way… and here comes the album you didn’t expect.

I still remember when “Heritage” was released, with its heavily derivative prog-rock that abandoned heavy guitars and growl vocals. I remember the Opeth community splitting between those who appreciated the break from the past and those who criticized the lack of ideas. I also recall when I went to see them on that tour at Alcatraz, when, not content with the studio surprise, they surprised once more live by offering a setlist entirely devoid of growl-sung tracks. It was as if Mikael Åkerfeldt had had enough of heavy things. In the subsequent tours, growl tracks would return to the setlist, but the studio path would continue under the prog-rock star for three more albums; if at the beginning of this journey the proposal was excessively derivative, with an excessive debt to bands like Camel and King Crimson, Opeth gradually managed to put their own spin on it, making the style increasingly personal; in my opinion, with the latest “In Cauda Venenum,” Opeth had reached their creative peak as a progressive rock band, it was still somewhat indebted but overall sounded Opeth, proving to everyone that Opeth were perfectly capable of making their mark even as a progressive rock band.

However, something must have clicked in Åkerfeldt's mind, difficult to ascertain whether it's nostalgia for the past, a response to criticism, or simply a desire to start a new path. And here Opeth present themselves with “The Last Will and Testament.” The album is a concept set after the end of World War I and fundamentally consists of the reading of a family's father's will, a will revealing shocking family secrets; already the very structure of the concept is striking, 7 out of the 8 tracks have no title and are simply indicated by a graphic symbol and number, representing just the paragraphs of the will, only the last one has a true title. But the most surprising thing is the sound: in this album, after a good fifteen years, heavy guitars and growl vocals make a powerful comeback, a godsend for nostalgics of the old course. However, a series of considerations must be made, as it is anything but a sterile return to origins or a mere exercise in style. It is absolutely not a return to the raw death metal of “Morningrise” nor to the more embittered and evolved one of “Blackwater Park,” there isn't that late-autumn Nordic coniferous forest atmosphere; honestly, I wouldn't even be so sure to call it “death,” it doesn't have that kind of typically death dramatic and biting riff, it doesn't have those gallops, nor those elaborate folk-like acoustic parts. The atmosphere, instead, is rather gothic, a bit unsettling, almost noir, like a horror movie, a mood never belonging to the band so far, some parts truly have a very theatrical and cinematic feel, especially the slow ones, acting as intros or outros or inserted in between to break the rhythm.

In any case, the return to metal is not total and peremptory, in some tracks the hard riffs are more present, in others decidedly less, there are tracks comfortably classifiable as metal and others that instead are more correctly inserted still in prog-rock; in other cases, metal is rather rarefied, almost like a sort of enhanced heavy rock, as if drawing from the album “Sorceress” and upgrading it. Overall, we can say that the roots are still planted there, the solid base on which the tracks are founded is still prog-rock, the heavy riffs and growls simply rest on top of it. The distorted organs and robust mellotron still constitute the clay soil on which everything is built, the string arrangements also dominate, creating an ideal link with the previous album. What album would I compare “The Last Will and Testament” to, if I absolutely had to? What would I relate it to? Most probably to “Watershed”; that was the album where the seventies-style prog component started to take over and the death metal one was still present but no longer too dominant. Not erroneous either the comparison with a “Ghost Reveries.” In my opinion, that phase that occurred between 2005 and 2008 lasted too short. It was a crucial moment for Opeth: the integration of keyboards, the opening towards more modern and alternative metal sounds, and the general rhythmic and structural redesign could have represented a completely new artistic phase for the band, but they chose to promptly shift towards classic prog-rock, interrupting a discourse that, in my opinion, could have been carried on for two more albums. Well, “The Last Will and Testament” seems to be precisely the missing follow-up to “Watershed,” it seems the ideal album with which that discourse could have been carried forward, it seems to restart from there.

The album, however, surprises under various aspects. The variety of solutions, riffs, and rhythms is impressive, there is a thread but it never repeats the same riff. There are also surprising innovations, such as the unusual use of the harp in the fourth track, the vaguely Arabian influence of the fifth, or Ian Anderson's flute in some tracks (it seems Åkerfeldt tried to contact him already to play in the track “Famine” in “Heritage” but without getting a response), or even an unlikely and unexpected guest like Joey Tempest from Europe (what do Opeth have to do with Europe, apart from nationality…?), who, however, does not sing but just recites a few verses. Then, thanks to the new drummer Waltteri Väyrynen, we probably have the best drum parts ever; very varied as well is the work of the already seasoned bassist Martín Méndez, who also offers his best performance, ranging from jazzy rhythms to slower and sinister ones, from the dancing folk rhythms to the bolder and funk ones, always with great variety, he also never plays the same.

Scrolling over the tracks, we can say that the first two are probably the most metal and, in a sense, the most immediate, the first especially leaves a mark with its obsessive and massive rhythm. The third, however, has just a touch of metal and does not feature growl, it's closer perhaps to the rougher prog of “Sorceress,” it's a sort of rail marked by the bass and traversed by brilliant orchestral arrangements. The fourth showcases the metal gallops in the first and last part, while in the central part finds space first for the harp solo and then Ian Anderson's flute solo fully in his style (the leader of Jethro Tull announced his presence in the album even before Opeth released statements about a new album). The fifth paragraph, one of the most interesting moments of the record, instead presents brilliant orchestral arrangements and sophisticated acoustic parts, has a clear Middle Eastern inflection, also marked by minimalist percussion and strange electronic loops in the central part, only sporadically becomes aggressive but when it does, it does so at maximum power, with the heaviest riffs of the entire album, lashes that could remind of KoRn in a significantly more irate version. The sixth paragraph has in its strength the incredible groove, the vaguely funk bass parts of the first part even refer to early Faith No More, a groove that marks the entire track but the concluding part, almost as a counterbalance, is very slow, dreamy and sublime. In the seventh track, the metal parts are so rarefied and polished that they don't even seem such, while the concluding and only titled “A Story Never Told” is purely prog-rock, it's the perfect legacy of the previous artistic phase, it's slow and relaxed and vaguely evokes the old more suggestive and sentimental Camel.

We can say that “The Last Will and Testament” has been the surprise album of the year 2024, the one that returned a band in a version that seemed lost and we thought we would never hear again, but it did so in a new and completely renewed guise without becoming a mere nostalgia operation. Somewhere between a “Watershed,” a “Sorceress,” and an “In Cauda Venenum,” this album could very well represent the beginning of a new course, but it is obvious that only the subsequent albums will be able to tell.