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

Why you'll love it

This 180g 2LP set comes in a gatefold jacket with a four-page booklet and poster. Metal Hammer's critics named Watershed the second-best album of 2008, and Metal Edge readers voted it No. 1.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• 4-page booklet
• Poster included
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Watershed arrived with two new faces in the lineup, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson and drummer Martin Axenrot, and Mikael Åkerfeldt seemed determined to show them every room in the house. It's Opeth at their most restless: death metal roars, acoustic folk, 70s prog and mellotron fog, sometimes all inside one song.

It opens not with a riff but with "Coil," a gentle acoustic duet between Åkerfeldt and Nathalie Lorichs, before "Heir Apparent" crashes in like a landslide. "The Lotus Eater" lurches between blast beats and jazzy grooves, "Burden" (inspired by a Scorpions ballad Åkerfeldt heard on holiday in Turkey) is a lush, organ-soaked lament, and "Hex Omega" closes the album proper with Per Wiberg's keyboards to the fore. Jens Bogren co-produced, recorded, mixed and mastered it, keeping the heavy parts crushing and the quiet parts close enough to touch, and Travis Smith made the artwork with Åkerfeldt.

Åkerfeldt then put the growl away for the best part of sixteen years, until The Last Will and Testament in 2024. That's a long time to keep anything in a drawer, let alone a voice.

Also at Kops: more Opeth on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Roadrunner / Music On Vinyl (cat# MOVLP2162), a reissue of the 2008 album.