OPETH 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 co-produced, recorded, mixed with the band 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 co-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!"

Deliverance (25th Anniversary), the anniversary edition of the sixth album, is dated 27 November 2026 on Music For Nations. It keeps the six songs of 2002 in their original order and the 2002 photograph on the sleeve, now with the logo, the title and "25th Anniversary" set in one line across the top. Formats are a CD and a double LP on coloured vinyl, Crystal Clear and a Black Clouds pressing limited to 1,000 copies among them.

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.

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.