OPETH TRIVIA
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".