Morningrise

Because the debut had been held up, most of the songs here were already written by the time Orchid came out. Mikael Åkerfeldt has said the new material still felt fresh to them, and that some fragments went back as far as 1991. The album was recorded in March and April 1996 at Unisound Studio in Finspång, the same room as before, with the band staying at the home of Peter Lindgren's girlfriend's family. Opeth produced and mixed it with Dan Swanö, who also engineered; it was the last record he worked on with them, and the last with drummer Anders Nordin and bassist Johan De Farfalla. Åkerfeldt has described the recording itself as quite boring, blaming the endless drum takes and the click track. There is more clean singing than on the debut and a stronger colour of progressive rock and folk. The twenty-minute "Black Rose Immortal" ends on one of the longest and most violent screams of Åkerfeldt's career. William York of AllMusic wrote that on a metal scale this is possibly their least heavy album. The American release came on 24 June 1997. The running order here is the original's as printed.