Opeth: Ghost Reveries (2LP) [MUSIC ON VINYL]

Why you'll love it

This Music On Vinyl edition spreads Ghost Reveries across two 180g LPs, with a poster and a booklet of lyrics and credits. It was Opeth's eighth album and their first for Roadrunner, and "The Grand Conjuration" was its single.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Poster included
• Booklet with lyrics and credits
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Mikael Åkerfeldt set out to write an occult concept album, got as far as a few properly sinister lyrics, then wrote "Isolation Years" and liked it too much to keep the story going. What survived is half a concept and a whole lot of atmosphere: death growls, open-tuned guitars and long, winding songs that swing from crushing to tender without warning.

For the first time since Still Life, the songs were finished before the band went in, which gave Opeth three weeks to rehearse and polish at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, with Jens Bogren co-producing. Per Wiberg joined on keyboards as a full member, and his organ thickens everything from "The Baying of the Hounds" to "Atonement," a hazy, almost psychedelic detour. "Ghost of Perdition" opens the record at full tilt, and "Reverie/Harlequin Forest" and "Hours of Wealth" show off the gentler side. Travis Smith's candlelit photos became the cover after a trip to Stockholm's Royal Library for a suitably evil woodcut came up empty.

It was the last Opeth album with drummer Martin Lopez and guitarist Peter Lindgren, and "Ghost of Perdition" later turned up in Saints Row 2 and Rock Band 3. Ten minutes of Swedish progressive metal on a plastic guitar is a rite of passage, and we salute everyone who made it to the end.

Also at Kops: more Opeth on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Roadrunner / Music On Vinyl (cat# MOVLP2269), a reissue of the 2005 album.