“Is this the best guitar I’ve ever played? Including the ones in your museum? I believe so”: Mikael Åkerfeldt has played Kurt Cobain’s 1953 D-18 ‘Grandpa’ and 19th-century holy grail acoustics but says his Martin OM signature beats the lot of them

Mikael Åkerfeldt with his Martin OM Signature model, playing a few notes with trees in the background.

Mikael Åkerfeldt and Martin have teamed up for a signature OM acoustic guitar that the Opeth frontman insists is even better than anything the storied Pennsylvanian brand has at their museum.

The holy grail acoustic from the 1800s, Kurt Cobain’s "haunted" D-18, aka Grandpa? Åkerfeldt has played them both – reluctantly in the case of the 1800s heritage survivor, for fear he’d break it – and no, none come close. He says his OM signature guitar is better than them all, and looking at it, you can see why he has fallen hard for it.