Sweden’s Opeth have always pushed the boundaries of heavy music. Once upon a time nobody else sounded like them, with their blend of virtuoso-level instrumental chops applied to progressive metal forms and capped off with death metal vocals. But by the time everyone started to catch on, Opeth changed their sound. Whether driven by a need to be one step ahead of their imitators or simply because that’s where their creative muse has taken them, the band’s two most recent albums (Heritage and Pale Communion) have been dramatic departures from their earlier sound.
Some corners of the fan base outright rejected the new style. Others found themselves loving Opeth even more for bringing those progressive influences to the fore – not the progressive metal sound, but good old-fashioned ’70s-style progressive rockà la Mahavishnu Orchestra, Rainbow and Yes. Australian fans will get to hear how Pale Communion fits in with the overall Opeth catalogue this May when the band visits for a handful of shows.
Aussie audiences have always been particularly receptive to Opeth, no matter where their sonic direction takes them. “I believe this is my fifth tour with Opeth in Australia,” says guitarist FredrikÅkesson. “I think we came down two times with each of the last two albums.”
There’s something very Laurel Canyon occultist about the sound of Opeth today, with jazzy drums, fusion-inspired guitar lines and lush vocal harmonies. As frontman MikaelÅkerfeldt explained upon Pale Communion’s release, “A lot of metal fans might be sad to hear that I went into old man’s rock territory. I was listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and I was introduced to David Crosby by Steven Wilson who played me his first solo record, and obviously he was in The Byrds and he’s a master of vocal harmonies. I picked up on that and there was a time when I was writing this record where I figured I wanted to do harmony vocals all the way through. Like, only harmony vocals.”
Fans of Opeth’s earlier sound needn’t fear: the lack of death vocals on the last two albums doesn’t mean the ‘classic’ tracks will now have lush vocal harmonies instead of growls when they’re played live.
“Basically we stay very true to the originals for the older material,” Åkesson says. “And of course we want to do the same with the new stuff. One thing we’ve started to do on the gear side of things is we’ve started using PRS guitars with Piezo pickups, which allow us to replicate the sound of acoustic guitars. That’s been a real big thing for our live sound because the older material often switches quite quickly between a full, distorted sound and an acoustic guitar with fingerpicking. That’s been really good for the sound. It works really great for the new stuff and the old stuff as well. It puts it into another dimension live because we’re not using a clean electric guitar sound for the acoustic parts. It’s much closer to the real deal.”
WhileÅkerfeldt was ready to share his vocal influences when the album dropped, Бkesson – like many guitarists – remains quite gear-focused; he has a signature guitar model out through PRS, and likes to collect interesting gear. In the studio he uses Marshall’s signature Yngwie Malmsteen amplifier – another Swedish guitar virtuoso who is touring Australia soon – and is always looking for unique new sounds.
“I have a few amps,” he understates with a wry smile. “I have the JVM Joe Satriani Marshall, which works really good. I have quite a few guitars. I bought a Gibson Les Paul Junior from 1955 a while back. The latest guitar I picked up was a Japanese ’72 Fender Stratocaster reissue and it’s fun to play that around the house, but I mainly play my PRSes. I also have a 1972 Gibson SG. I was born in 1972 and it sounds brilliant, that guitar.”
Åkesson has an extensive musical education and is able to integrate complex music theory into his work without coming off sounding like a music school robot. “I started playing violin as a kid before I started playing guitar,” he says. “I wasn’t totally into it but it was probably good training for the guitar. I started that when I was six, seven years old or something. I bought my first guitar when I was about ten and in the beginning it was just a few chords and a few riffs from AC/DC, mainly. Then after a while it was guys like Gary Moore, Michael Schenker, Yngwie Malmsteen, Ritchie Blackmore, Tony Iommi, Adrian Smith. That evoked my interest and I started practising a lot more. By the time I was 15 or 16 I was practising eight hours a day. I’m still trying to come back to that state! Some days I can do it. But you have kids and you have more stuff to do and more responsibilities. But on the road I have more hours to kill so I try to play a lot more. You can always get better, you know? That’s why it’s so fun playing guitar. I try to maintain that hungry 16-year-old-boy kind of attitude.”
Opeth’sPale Communion is out now through Roadrunner/Warner, and they play withSleepmakeswaves at Enmore Theatre on Sunday May 3.
