OPETH
Biography and discography of Opeth, the Swedish band formed in Stockholm in 1990 and led by Mikael Akerfeldt, with a page for each of their fourteen studio albums from Orchid in 1995 to The Last Will and Testament in 2024, including running orders, CD details and liner notes, on METAL BOOST.
Biography
OPETH
Biography
Opeth are a Swedish band from Stockholm. David Isberg started them in April 1990, and before long it was the singer and guitarist Mikael Akerfeldt who wrote the songs and led them. They have made fourteen studio albums, from Orchid in 1995 to The Last Will and Testament in 2024. They are known for writing that moves between death metal roaring and the progressive rock of the 1970s inside a single song, and for the thirteen years from Heritage in 2011 during which that roaring was set aside.
From the beginning to the debut (1990-1996)
It began in Stockholm in April 1990, as a band made by the singer David Isberg; the name is taken from a fictional city in Wilbur Smith's novel The Sunbird. Isberg invited Mikael Akerfeldt, formerly of Eruption, to play bass, but had not told the others he was doing it. When Akerfeldt turned up at rehearsal there was a row, and everyone but Isberg and Akerfeldt walked out. The two of them put the band back together.
In 1992 Isberg left over creative differences. From then on Akerfeldt sang, wrote the songs and drove the band, which is what he has gone on doing. They signed to Candlelight Records in 1994, and the debut Orchid came out on 15 May 1995. Morningrise, on 24 June 1996, is five songs and sixty-six minutes, every one of them past ten minutes long. Both records sat for a long time between the recording and the release.
My Arms, Your Hearse and Still Life (1997-1999)
In 1997 the drummer Martin Lopez and the bassist Martin Mendez answered an advertisement Akerfeldt had placed. The third album, My Arms, Your Hearse (18 August 1998), is the first Lopez played on, but Mendez had no time to learn the bass parts and Akerfeldt played all of them himself. Where Morningrise ran long, every song here runs under ten minutes, and the lyrics were all written before the music. They follow the ghost of a man who cannot accept that he is dead; each song closes on the word that titles the next, and the words of "Epilogue" end on "prologue", closing the circle. The title comes from a line in Comus's "Drip, Drip".
The fourth album, Still Life (18 October 1999), is the first on which Mendez actually plays bass. It is also the only record they released through Peaceville, and time was short enough that the band managed just two rehearsals before the sessions. A delay over the cover art pushed the release back another month, and because of the band's distribution at the time American shops did not have it until 27 February 2001. It follows a man banished from his town for not sharing its faith, returning after some years to Melinda, and the ruin that comes of it.
Steven Wilson and Blackwater Park (2000-2002)
From the fifth album, Blackwater Park (12 March 2001), Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree came in as producer. It started when an interviewer who was a friend of Akerfeldt's, and knew he admired Wilson's work, gave Wilson a copy of Still Life. It was the first Opeth album released in North America at the same time as everywhere else, and the first for which they had a title before recording began; the title is taken from the German progressive rock band of the same name.
The sixth album, Deliverance (November 2002), and the seventh, Damnation (April 2003), came out of one set of sessions between July and October 2002. Deliverance is the heavy half; Damnation uses no distorted guitar and no death growls at all, and on it Wilson produced, recorded, mixed and mastered as well as playing keyboards and mellotron. Most of the singing was done at his own No Man's Land in Hemel Hempstead, England. Damnation remains the last Opeth album he has produced. In 2015 the two were reissued as one release, publishing Wilson's 5.1 mix of Damnation and Bruce Soord's remix of Deliverance for the first time.
Roadrunner and Watershed (2005-2008)
In 2005 the band signed to Roadrunner Records and released their eighth album, Ghost Reveries, that August. The keyboard player Per Wiberg, who had been touring with them, became a full member around the same time.
Martin Lopez left in May 2006 for health reasons and Martin Axenrot took the drum seat. In May 2007 the guitarist Peter Lindgren left after sixteen years, and Fredrik Akesson, formerly of Arch Enemy, came in. The ninth album, Watershed (May 2008), is the first made by that line-up, recorded at Fascination Street Studios in Orebro, Sweden, with Jens Bogren. No album after it carried death growls until 2024.
Heritage and the turn to progressive rock (2011-2019)
On the tenth album, Heritage (September 2011), the band put the death growls away entirely. The first two songs Akerfeldt wrote for it carried on from Watershed; Mendez told him he would be disappointed if the record went that way, so Akerfeldt threw both out and started again. It was recorded at Atlantis Studios in Stockholm and mixed by Steven Wilson, his first work with them since Damnation. Fredrik Akesson later said the album "was necessary for us to do" and that "maybe the band wouldn't have continued if we hadn't done Heritage". Per Wiberg left in April 2011, once the recording was finished, and Joakim Svalberg took the keyboard seat.
The eleventh album, Pale Communion (August 2014), is Svalberg's first studio record with them, produced by Akerfeldt with Tom Dalgety and mixed again by Wilson. In 2016 the band left Roadrunner for Nuclear Blast, set up their own Moderbolaget Records imprint and released the twelfth album, Sorceress, on 30 September 2016. The thirteenth, In Cauda Venenum (27 September 2019), came out the same day in a Swedish version and an English version; at 67 minutes and 57 seconds it is their longest album, and it is the last with Axenrot.
The growls come back (2021-2026)
Martin Axenrot left in November 2021, and in September 2022 Waltteri Vayrynen, formerly of Paradise Lost, took the drum seat.
The fourteenth album, The Last Will and Testament (22 November 2024), is the band's first out-and-out concept record. It is set in the years after the First World War and turns on the reading of a man's will to the family gathered to hear it; of its eight songs only the closing ballad "A Story Never Told" has a title, and the rest are numbered chapters. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull performs the narration and plays flute, and Joey Tempest of Europe sings backing vocals.
And the growls, set aside for so long, come back on it. The band's own biography calls it the first time since Watershed in 2008 and quotes Akerfeldt: "I like to be unfashionable, in a way. So, when it comes to bringing that kind of death metal vocal back, I wanted it to happen when people had stopped caring... and I guess that's now!" He credits the new drummer with some of the push - "He's a death metal guy" - and says Mendez had been telling him "maybe you should do something heavier this time". It was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales, where, Akerfeldt says, Vayrynen played the most technical songs in one take: "We were almost recording it in real time!"
The members
The line-up is Mikael Akerfeldt on vocals and guitar, Fredrik Akesson on guitar, Martin Mendez on bass, Joakim Svalberg on keyboards and Waltteri Vayrynen on drums. The official site calls the first four the band's long-established line-up and introduces Vayrynen as the new drummer who joined in 2022.
The founder David Isberg left in 1992, and Mikael Akerfeldt has been the centre of the band ever since. Among the past members, the guitarist Peter Lindgren (1991-2007), the drummer Martin Lopez (1997-2006), the keyboard player Per Wiberg (2005-2011) and the drummer Martin Axenrot (2006-2021) all served long terms.
Discography
There are fourteen studio albums: Orchid (1995), Morningrise (1996), My Arms, Your Hearse (1998), Still Life (1999), Blackwater Park (2001), Deliverance (2002), Damnation (2003), Ghost Reveries (2005), Watershed (2008), Heritage (2011), Pale Communion (2014), Sorceress (2016), In Cauda Venenum (2019) and The Last Will and Testament (2024). The labels run Candlelight, Peaceville, Music for Nations, Roadrunner and Nuclear Blast with Moderbolaget.
Besides those there are the live albums Lamentations (2003), The Roundhouse Tapes (2007), In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall (2010) and Garden of the Titans (2018), and the compilations Peaceville Presents... Opeth (2013) and Deliverance & Damnation Remixed (2015). The album list on this site covers the studio albums.
Concerts in Japan
Their first visit was on 14 October 2006, playing Loud Park 06 at Makuhari Messe. After that came 21 March 2013 at Umeda Club Quattro and the 22nd at Liquidroom in Ebisu (The Heritage World Tour), 28 April 2015 at Morinomiya Piloti Hall and the 30th at EX Theater Roppongi (Pale Communion Japan 2015), 14 October 2017 at Saitama Super Arena for Loud Park 17, and 5 December 2019 at Umeda Club Quattro and the 6th at Zepp Tokyo (In Cauda Venenum Tour in Japan 2019).
On 27 and 28 November 2025 they played two nights at EX Theater Roppongi, their first Japanese concerts in six years; both sold out. A club show at Shinsaibashi Club Quattro on 30 August 2008 and the three dates of Opeth Japan Tour 2012 (16 February at Umeda Akaso, the 17th at Nagoya Club Quattro, the 18th at Shinkiba Studio Coast) also took place, but no promoter, venue or label record of them could be opened, so they are not in this site's LIVE listings.
About the sources
The facts here come from the band's own BIOGRAPHY page (the current line-up and what each member plays, Waltteri Vayrynen joining in 2022, the return of the death growls and the phrase "for the first time since Watershed in 2008", the parts played by Ian Anderson and Joey Tempest, the single titled song among the eight, the recording at Rockfield Studios, and the quotations from Akerfeldt), the English Wikipedia articles for the band and for each album (the formation, David Isberg's departure, the months and years in which members joined and left, the label moves, and each record's producer, studio, concept and release history), MusicBrainz's artist and release data (the founding year of 1990, Stockholm as the founding place, and each record's release date, country, label, catalogue number and running order), two Blabbermouth articles (3 October 2019 on the two language versions of In Cauda Venenum, and 12 September 2015 on the Deliverance & Damnation reissue), the concert announcements of Warner Music Japan, Creativeman, Smash and Gekirock (the dates, venues, times and prices of the Japanese shows), and the Spotify embed payloads used to identify each album and check whether it will play. All were read on 29 September 2026.
Trivia
The death growls that had been set aside for years came back on The Last Will and Testament in 2024, and the timing was chosen. In the band's own biography Mikael Akerfeldt says: "I like to be unfashionable, in a way. So, when it comes to bringing that kind of death metal vocal back, I wanted it to happen when people had stopped caring... and I guess that's now!" He also points to a run of anniversary shows where the band played a lot of old songs and he thought his death metal voice sounded good. The same page calls this the first time the voice has been on a record since Watershed in 2008.
Of the eight songs on The Last Will and Testament, only one has a title. The closing ballad "A Story Never Told" is named; the other seven are given only a section mark and a number. The record follows the reading of one man's will in the years after the First World War, and the band's own biography calls it their first out-and-out concept album.
The flute Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull plays on The Last Will and Testament was not something the band asked for. Mikael Akerfeldt had wanted Anderson for the spoken word, and says in the band's own biography that he felt it would be "a bit too cliched to ask him to play a flute solo too". Anderson asked him instead - "Do you need a flute solo?" - and Akerfeldt said yes. Anderson performs as the voice of the album's chief protagonist.
The story on The Last Will and Testament started with a television series. In the band's own biography Mikael Akerfeldt says he had become interested in family, and in the idea that blood is not always thicker than water: he had seen an interview with a man whose family had all turned against him over an inheritance and written a song about it on the previous record, and the idea stuck. Then the series Succession came along, which he loved, and that was in the back of his head too.
The drummer Waltteri Vayrynen, who joined in 2022, surprised the band during the recording of The Last Will and Testament. In the band's own biography Mikael Akerfeldt says he knew Vayrynen was a great drummer but did not know how good he was: sitting at Rockfield Studios in Wales, he played the insanely technical songs in one take, and "we were almost recording it in real time!" Akerfeldt adds that the rest of them are not crappy musicians either - "We can play" - and it was still remarkable.
What Joey Tempest of Europe does on The Last Will and Testament is a call and response with Ian Anderson. In the band's own biography Mikael Akerfeldt calls it another dream come true, says the two of them have become friends over the years, and notes that Tempest is a Jethro Tull listener who had met Anderson a few times. He then states his rule for guests: "You don't want to have guests that just for the glitter and glamour. You want someone that's going to add something to the record."
In Cauda Venenum came out in 2019 in a Swedish version and an English version on the same day, but to the man who wrote it the Swedish one is the record. Mikael Akerfeldt told Blabbermouth that "the main version is the Swedish version. And the English version is the supplementary version", and that "the Swedish version is where to start". The plan had been to release the Swedish album alone; he was happy with the songs but "was also getting a bit anxious whether people are going to pass on this record just because it's in a language most of our fans wouldn't understand", so he recorded an English one as well. He also said he could not stop writing this time, and that the Swedish language had set him off - which is part of why it is the longest record the band has made.
Deliverance and Damnation, made in one set of sessions in 2002, were reissued as a single release through Music for Nations on 30 October 2015. Steven Wilson made a new 5.1 surround mix of Damnation for it, published there for the first time, and Mikael Akerfeldt called it "simply stunning" in his comments to Blabbermouth. Deliverance was remixed by Bruce Soord of The Pineapple Thief, which Akerfeldt said was "literally giving new life to the record". Travis Smith, who had done the original covers, redesigned the artwork, and a 32-page booklet carried liner notes by Akerfeldt and by Jerry Ewing of Prog magazine. Looking back at the sessions Akerfeldt added that he was "scratching my head wondering how the hell we came up with these songs".
News
EUROPE Release 'Scandinavian Eyes' Video From September 25 Album 'Come This Madness'
The performance clip was directed by Patric Ullaeus. The album was recorded at RMV Studio in Stockholm, features Tobias Forge (Ghost) and Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) on backing vocals, was produced by Tom Dalgety and mixed by Mike Fraser.
Play MVCurrent Members
Current line-up as published by the official site, verified on 2026-09-29.
Albums
Opeth's fourteenth studio album, from November 2024, and the return of death growls for the first time since Watershed.
Opeth's thirteenth album, from September 2019, issued on the same day in two versions, one sung in Swedish and one in English.
Opeth's twelfth album, from September 2016, and the first they released through Nuclear Blast and their own Moderbolaget imprint.
Opeth's eleventh album, from August 2014, and the first with the keyboard player Joakim Svalberg.
Opeth's tenth album, from September 2011, made without a single death growl and turned towards the progressive rock of the 1970s.
Opeth's ninth album, from May 2008, and the first with the guitarist Fredrik Akesson and the drummer Martin Axenrot.
Opeth's eighth album, from August 2005. It was their first for Roadrunner and the first with keyboard player Per Wiberg as a permanent member.
Opeth's seventh album, from April 2003, the half of one set of sessions that carries neither distortion nor death growls.
Opeth's sixth album, from November 2002. It was made in the same sessions as Damnation and is the heavy half of the pair.
Opeth's fifth album, out on 12 March 2001. It is the first record Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree produced for them.
Opeth's fourth album, from October 1999, and the first with the bass player Martin Mendez.
Opeth's third album, from August 1998, the first on which every song runs under ten minutes and the first built as a single story.
Opeth's second album, issued by Candlelight on 24 June 1996. Five songs run for sixty-six minutes, and it is the defining record of their early years.
Opeth's debut, issued by Candlelight on 15 May 1995. The band never made a demo; a rehearsal tape alone got them the contract.