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The Latest Breaking News from Mikael Åkerfeldt

“What we are after is not perfection. You’re looking for the flaws… the noise… earth hum. You’re looking for the arm-tight playing… the human aspect”: Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt on inspirations, intuition, shred, and the problem with modern metal

A sprawling story of dark familial secrets, freewheeling prog and Åkerfeldt death growls, solos inspired by Peter Green and Ritchie Blackmore, Opeth bequeath everything a prog-metal fan could ever want on The Last Will And Testament

MusicRadar

"I’ve thought about writing a will, just to make sure my daughters don’t throw my records away." With guest appearances from Ian Anderson and Joey Tempest, plus the return of death metal, The Last Will And Testament is Opeth's biggest swing yet

Mikael Åkerfeldt spills the tea on Opeth's prog metal rock opera The Last Will And Testament

Metal Hammer

“No-one’s seen me with a Tele before. I wouldn’t normally be caught dead with one – I think they’re ugly”: Mikael Åkerfeldt explains why a Fender Telecaster was the only guitar he used on Opeth’s new album

Åkerfeldt had secretly used a Tele when he recorded the soundtrack to Netflix's 2022 miniseries Clark, but never wielded one with Opeth before recording The Last Will and Testament

Guitar World

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“I hate the term ‘thinking man’s metal’. That kind of term could hurt the band”: The story of Opeth’s Blackwater Park, the album that changed prog metal forever

How Opeth seized the prog metal throne with 2001’s genre-defining Blackwater Park album

Metal Hammer

“I used to do these very gloomy and dark paintings, and Opeth’s music really inspired my creativity”: Jinjer’s Tatiana Shmailyuk gets goosebumps even thinking about Damnation, and likes to fall asleep to Sorceress

The discovery of Mikael Åkerfeldt’s band when she was 16 led the Ukrainian artist into a big new world of prog – but she’s not sure about actually meeting him

Metal Hammer

“I watch it, love it, like pretty much everyone I talk to”: Opeth explain how hit TV series Succession inspired new album The Last Will And Testament

Mikael Åkerfeldt talks about the impact that one of the 2020s’ biggest TV shows had on Opeth’s new music

Metal Hammer

“You could argue we were the quintessential cult band. But I was thinking, ‘We can be more than this’”: In Absentia sold poorly, influenced greatly, and marked the beginning of the end for Porcupine Tree

They delivered a defining moment in progressive metal with their 2002 album, but it wasn’t easy to do it – and once they had, Steven Wilson didn’t want to do it again

Metal Hammer

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Opeth push back release of The Last Will & Testament to November 22

Opeth will tour Europe and the UK in February and March 2025

Louder

“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

In 2011, Opeth released Heritage – and cut the the last cord with their death metal past

Metal Hammer

“There’s some screams on there. It’s cool that people appreciate it. It’s also a bit annoying.” Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt is slightly irritated by all this talk about his growls

We’re all happy that Opeth are screaming again, but Mikael Åkerfeldt isn’t happy with how happy we are

Metal Hammer

"He's the king of death metal." Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt and Fredrik Akesson name the greatest death metal band of all time, and discuss their own journey through the genre

From inverted crosses in flowerbeds to failing to blow Morbid Angel off-stage and petty larceny, Opeth talk their journey through death metal

Metal Hammer

Hear Opeth go full prog on new single §3

Their last single was a death metal comeback. Now, Opeth are showing their proggy side again.

Metal Hammer

“When it comes to many of the classics, I don’t even know what they’re about!” How Mikael Åkerfeldt’s policy of not taking advice led Opeth to Pale Communion

Inspired by sharing records with Steven Wilson, he took a more melodic approach, added a vague title that just sounded cool, and forged them into a “journey through life that starts pretty good and ends shit”

Louder

“It’s disarming being expected to do the whole ‘Oh yeah! Throw the horns, dude!’ thing. I couldn’t do it with a straight face”: Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt loves metal, but he doesn’t always take it seriously

Opeth released their classic 11th album Pale Communion on this day in 2014 –and Mikael Åkerfeldt didn’t care whether the gatekeepers liked it or not

Metal Hammer

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Metal Hammer

"We haven't done anything decent in 15 years. Message received." Opeth embrace the classics in old school Bloodstock headline set

Opeth's third time headlining Bloodstock shows just how they elevated extreme metal at the turn of the millennnium

Metal Hammer

“I”m stunned that some bands have success. I don’t like many bands, actually. The metal scene today is horrible”: How Opeth separated themselves from the herd with Ghost Reveries

2005’s Ghost Reveries was the album that kicked Opeth to the next level, but Mikael Åkerfeldt wanted to untangle his band from the metal scene

Metal Hammer

”Every time you go into the mainstream, I get really uncomfortable”: Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt declined to join an Abba tribute band at Eurovision this year

Opeth’s leader was approached to help celebrate 50 years of Abba’s 1974 Eurovision win, but turned the chance down

Metal Hammer

“We just wanted to findauthentic, heavier, evil-sounding music”: Mikael Åkerfeldt explains how Opeth rediscovered death metal on new single §1

Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt has growled on a new song for the first time since 2008. This is his explanation why.

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Metal Hammer

"It feels like a dream." Opeth reveal new concept album The Last Will And Testament will be released in October

Opeth's The Last Will And Testament features guest appearances from Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson and Europe's Joey Tempest

Louder

"It has become the cult classic we always intended it to be…" Steven Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt's Storm Corrosion gets deluxe reissue

Storm Corrosion will be reissued on coloured and black vinyl, Blu-ray and CD in September

Metal Hammer

"Emails were exchanged with Ian Anderson, containing something that could be described as music": Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt is unable to tell you what he'd like to tell you

Swedish proggers Opeth have European festival dates throughout the summer before heading to the US, and have a new album in the can

MusicRadar

"It was kind of like being in a Def Leppard production with Mutt Lange": Opeth's Fredrik Åkesson talks playing guitar for Ghost and avoiding a blood explosion in the studio

We caught up with the super Swede after Opeth's set at the Tons Of Rock festival in Oslo, Norway

Louder

“Nothing was too crazy. Nothing was too outrageous. Once we had a beautiful part, we thought we should make it evil and disturbing”: Powered by red wine and bored with prog metal, Steven Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt made Storm Corrosion their way

Porcupine Tree and Opeth leaders’ 2012 collaboration wasn't what many people thought it would be – instead it was something more experimental which they described as “organic pagan minimalism”

Louder

“I was a wreck, physically and mentally. I wanted to cancel shows, split up the band, all these kind of things”: Aiming to make a “super-heavy record,” Opeth embraced the Mellotron and made Damnation instead

Mikael Åkerfeldt – who’d become band leader because no one else would do it – recalls the misery of making the landmark 2003 album which made him feel he could hold his own with the likes of Porcupine Tree

Metal Hammer

"Blackwater Park has been hyped as this big breakthrough for us. It really wasn't": How stress, isolation and Grand Theft Auto III inspired Opeth to write Windowpane

After 2001's Blackwater Park, Opeth knew they needed something special. But when Mikael Åkerfeldt suggested recording two albums at once, the band were almost pushed to breaking point

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