It's inevitable, really. From the instant Mikael Åkerfeldt gets a touch of the growlies, precisely 78 seconds into album opener §1 (‘Paragraph 1’), a certain, especially vocal subsect of Opeth’s fanbase will be sent into a frothing ecstasy at the prospect of them returning to the progressive death metal stylings they pioneered at the turn of the millennium. Claims like ‘The best Opeth record since Watershed’ can’t be far behind.
But then, is that all too regressive? Certainly, 2011’s Heritage was controversial for many, the band going full suede patches and purple velvet smoking jackets as they gleefully explored the outer reaches of progdom – or at least what buried obscurities Mikael could unearth on the cheap from Stockholm car boot sales. But that adoration for prog has always been a consistent – and key – element that made the Swedes so fascinating in the first place.
