Opeth – The Last Will And Testament Review

[Cover art by Travis Smith]

Hoooooooooboy, folks, look what we’ve got here. It’s gonna be hard to think of a metal album in 2024 that will elicit as many opinions as will The Last Will and Testament, album number 14 (FOURTEEN!) from Swedish prog legends Opeth. But you knew that before you clicked in here. A new Opeth album is always cause for some combination of debate, discourse, celebration, dismissal, rage, bliss, and/or several other emotions, actions, and reactions. A lot of people love Opeth. Some people hate Opeth. Some people just love or hate some Opeth, but it’s rare to find a metalhead without an opinion on this band. People don’t just nothing Opeth. Emotional energy is spent on this band regardless of your particular fondness for their music and their various eras.

Why spend emotional energy bringing up spent emotional energy? Well, because this album is extra notable, isn’t it? We all know why The Last Will and Testament is sure to garner more headlines and reactions than any Opeth album released in the better part of the last 15 years. After all of Mikael Åkerfeldt’s talk about how he’d fallen out of love with death metal and an extensive era of the band devoid of their extreme roots, The Last Will and Testament represents a bit of a homecoming… or does it?

Yes, Åkerfeldt’s elite tier death metal growls are back. Yes, this is their heaviest album since Watershed. But The Last Will and Testament doesn’t suddenly sound like Blackwater Park or Deliverance or Still Life. Opeth is a very different band than they were the last time they indulged their extreme side, both in terms of personnel and their musical approach. They’ve spent years doing their “Progpeth” thing, following Åkerfeldt’s 70s progressive rock muse to largely successful results (particularly on 2019’s magnificent In Cauda Venenum), and that side of the band isn’t about to be shoved into the background to give way 100 percent to progressive death metal once again. The Last Will and Testament has progressive death metal, yes, but it’s also loaded with that 70s prog influence, a grandiose sense of the dramatic, and all the classiness and sophistication you expect from Opeth.

Loaded is the key term. Despite clocking in at just over 50 minutes in length ‒ which makes it one of the shortest Opeth albums ‒ The Last Will and Testament is a dense record, throwing more ideas at the listener in that time than some of their longer albums do with an additional 20 minutes. Part of that is due to the format; this is a concept album about a wealthy father reading his titular last will and testament to his family, with seven of the eight tracks representing chapters in the will. These tracks often feel more like one large suite rather than individual songs, packed to the gills with proggy and infectious riffs (heaps of riffs), serene melodic passages, demonic growls, Ian Anderson narration (and flute solos!), jazzy drumming, actual orchestral flourishes, gorgeous singing, and a closer, more drawn in feel than many Opeth albums have featured in the past. If some past albums had the gargantuan scale of towering musical monoliths, The Last Will and Testament feels more intimate, as if you’re in the room with that aristocratic family, the music representing every dramatic twist and turn as secrets are revealed (gasp!). The density of the music really adds to that vibe.

As does the tendency to switch moods on a dime or layer them altogether. Opeth has long been a band of dualities ‒ light and dark, melodic and brutal, serenity and struggle ‒ but here those sides are in closer proximity than ever before. Opener “§1” wastes very little time going from an introductory shuffle of keyboards, drums, and bass to an explosion of those death growls and colossal riffs. A real statement of intent moment happens when the growls bellow out the album title right before the bottom drops out to just keys and orchestra. Make no mistake about it: the growls might be back, but this is dramatic, narrative prog at its core, to an extent we’ve rarely heard from Opeth. It gives the impression that the growls weren’t necessarily brought back to prove a point, but because this album needed all available voices.

And hot damn does it make glorious use of all available voices and tools in the vast Opeth kit. “§2” provides plenty of reminders that this band knows how to rock as much as it can be deeply reflective, while “§3” lays the prog on thick with oddball rhythms, stop-start riffs, one of the album’s many sleek and shreddy guitar solos, and more than a little bit of a rock opera vibe. It’s also a reaffirming reminder that Åkerfeldt’s singing voice is even more essential to this band’s aura of sophistication than his beastly roar. Later, “§6” features keyboardist Joakim Svalberg through both a progtastic and tasty solo and some beautiful piano during its outro.

Key to the album’s success is that it utilizes an arc over the “chapter” tracks, and really reaches a mid-album peak of sorts. This is the moment in the album’s story when secrets are revealed (double gasp!), and the music meets the moment with flair and grandiose scope. “§4” ranges in mood from almost completely hushed material (a slithery opening solo and soft passages of organ, harp, and flute) to the rageful and bombastic (super hefty riffs and growls and one desperate scream out of the background). It also makes maximum use of a rippin’ solo that positively tears the house down during a massive crescendo.

Then there’s “§5,” or as I like to call it, “Chapter This Is Why We Give This Band Money.” Growls are joined by huge, swaggery, swingin’ balls riffs, prog drama happens all over the place, and singing is often used to build narrative tension alongside masterful work from the band’s rhythm section (more on them in a bit). “§5” also makes great use of a lynchpin explosion, once early on as a tease (when heft is immediately abandoned for a quick bit of handclaps, because why not), and again later on to give way to the song’s emotional coda. And did we mention the riffs? What an absolute banger.

The album eventually begins to hint at a settling of the overall melodrama and story, especially during the last of the chapter tracks, “§7.” It trades in the tension of earlier songs for something downright toe-tapping, with big riffs and organ warbles and growls all working together with big impacts that are as catchy as anything here. When it spreads its mood and goes into Opeth Outro Mode, there’s a sense that our story is coming to an end, even if the album itself is not. The true ending is saved for “A Story Never Told,” a gorgeous ballad that would have felt right at home on albums as different as In Cauda Venenum and Ghost Reveries. It’s carried almost completely by Åkerfeldt’s golden voice and an achingly beautiful solo, offering a moment of reflection both for the album’s overall narrative arc and where exactly this band is at this moment. Yes, they can throw everything into a blender and end up with something new and fresh, but they can also bring you back home with a song that is as familiar in style as it is comforting in tone.

The range of vocals, the complexity and flashiness of Åkerfeldt’s and Fredrik Åkesson’s guitar work, and the album’s construction and concept all deserve plenty of attention and praise, but special credit must also be given to the band’s rhythm section. Longtime bassist Martín Méndez often acts as the album’s pulsating heartbeat, providing a throughline when the six-strings and keys are wandering in more theatrical terrain. Then there’s new drummer Waltteri Väyrynen, who does everything required of his post and more. From his very classic Opeth ride cymbal drive in “§4” and all the rhythmic trickery of the proggier material to his downright batshittery in “§6,” the man is a beast. It can’t be easy being the new drummer in Opeth, but Väyrynen meets his moment with aplomb. Together, he and Méndez hold down an uncrackable foundation to support the album’s extremely wide stylistic breadth.

All of this being said ‒ dramatic… pause! ‒ The Last Will and Testament may not be for everyone. If you’re the type of Opeth fan that has conditions to your fandom (you’re only into certain eras), you might not appreciate this combination of styles as much as others do. You might even view this album as capitulating to fans’ desires to hear the extreme version of the band again, or as some look to the past rather than the future. But if Opeth was going to commit themselves to fan service, they probably would have just made Blackwater Park II, instead of a supremely dramatic concept album full of wide emotional shifts and narration and characters and a full orchestra. This album was not the safe move, but we should all know better than to doubt Opeth.

Yes, the growls are back from the past, but everything else about this album is looking bravely into the band’s future, whatever that may be the next time out. As for this time out, throw another big W on the board for Mikael Åkerfeldt and Opeth. The Last Will and Testament is the latest stunning triumph in a long history of stunning triumphs from this singular musical institution.