On March 12, 2001, Opeth released their fifth album, Blackwater Park. It cemented the Swedish band’s status as prog metal masters, its ingenious fusion of everything from death metal and prog to black metal and folk leaving lasting ripples on the extreme metal scene. It was also the band’s first release with Music For Nations, the label that would help the band realise their ambitions for global recognition.
But for all the accolades heaped upon the album and its status as the record that broke Opeth to the wider world, frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt dismisses the idea of it suddenly turning the band into international metal stars.
