Opeth: Heritage (2LP) [MUSIC ON VINYL]

Why you'll love it

This Music On Vinyl 2LP set is pressed on 180g audiophile vinyl in a gatefold jacket, with an insert and a large poster. Heritage debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard 200 and swapped death growls for Mellotrons, Rhodes and Hammond organ.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Poster included
• Insert included

About the album

Every band reaches a fork in the road, and Opeth took the one lined with vintage keyboards. Mikael Åkerfeldt had grown restless with the metal scene around them, and after he played bassist Martín Méndez two new songs in the familiar style, Méndez pushed for something different. Åkerfeldt binned them, wrote "The Lines in My Hand," and built a new album from there.

The band cut it at Atlantis Studios in Stockholm in early 2011, with Janne Hansson engineering and Steven Wilson mixing. The title track nods to Swedish jazz pianist Jan Johansson and Swedish folk music, "Slither" is a tribute to Ronnie James Dio, who died while the album was being written, and "The Devil's Orchard" and "Häxprocess" wind through knotty chord changes and shifting time signatures. Longtime artist Travis Smith painted the cover, a tree whose roots reach down to the band's death metal past.

Wilson later called it the first part of a trilogy with his own Grace for Drowning and Storm Corrosion's debut, and The Guardian heard a brave, melancholic and often beautiful record. Åkerfeldt said he'd been heading toward it since he was 19. Most people that age plan a gap year; his just ran a little long.

Also at Kops: more Opeth on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Roadrunner / Music On Vinyl (cat# MOVLP3830), a reissue of the 2011 album.