“Had we not made this record the way it sounded, I’m not certain there would have been another album”: How Opeth ditched the death growls and fully embraced prog on Heritage

Originally published in Metal Hammer 222 (August 2011) (Image credit: Future)

Opeth’s new album, The Last Will And Testament, sees mainman Mikael Åkerfeldt bringing back old school death growls, to the delight of many fans. But back in 2011, the Heritage album found the Swedish prog metal kingpins jettisoning them in the first place. Why? As Åkerfeldt told Hammer at the time, there might not have been an Opeth album otherwise.

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