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Track Listing: Heritage The Devil's Orchard I Feel the Dark Slither Nepenthe Haxprocess Famine The Lines in My Hand Folklore Marrow of the Earth

It's always exciting whenever Opeth is ready to release a new album, not only because they are genius musicians, but also because they never release the same type of album twice. There is always something new, different and refreshing in each of their new releases. The Swedish progressive metal giants are ready to release their tenth studio album "Heritage" next week. They have been hugely prolific in the past, releasing new albums within a year or two years of each other. This is the first time they've taken three years which makes it the longest wait for an Opeth album, a wait that resulted in a heightened sense of curiosity as to what this album would eventually sound like.

The title track sets the tone for the album in the form of a 2-minute piano intro, and leads to "The Devil's Orchard". A very interesting track to say the least, and while it exudes a dark progressive aura that's been typical of Opeth over the years, there is definitely a touch of jazz in it, much to my personal enjoyment. Another aspect that I'm loving in this song is the prominence of the bass, which is often the lead instrument in the song. And as you might have heard or read in the press coverage leading up to this release, Mikael Akerfeldt has made use of clean vocals throughout the album, and there are no death growls on this one.

"I Feel The Dark" is a journey in itself, taking the listener through varied passages and progressions. It certainly has ambient, psychedelic undertones to it which should catch on with the listener pretty much instantly. "Slither" picks up the pace for a large chunk of its duration, offering more of that heavy bass-laden prog rock-plus-jazz fusion type of sound which is sitting rather well with my taste. An acoustic guitar piece by itself brings the song to an end and flows smoothly into the following tune "Nepenthe". This is another intriguing tune because it takes quite a while to build up, and in the end never really does so. It stays pretty minimalist, with a few notes of clean electric guitar, the occasional vocals, and drums and keyboards that are barely audible for the most part. The anxiety in the listener's mind keeps rising during the first two and half minutes, in anticipation of the song exploding and coming to life. It does so very briefly at its half way point, but quietens down again. "Haxprocess" has a different rhythm to it, but continues along almost exactly the same pattern in terms of the song structure.

"Famine" starts off with percussive sounds that give it a very exotic, tropical sort of feel but then settles down into a track that's typical of the album at least up to this point. The difference here though is that it's mulit-layered mid-segment makes it the heaviest and perhaps the richest piece on the entire album. For this reason and for the exotic element, this is my favorite track so far, but that might change in the long run. "Lines In My Hand" was the song I was initially most curious about, because Akerfeldt stated in an interview that this was the third song written for the album. The first two were Watershed-style prog-death songs, but it was after writing this song that the band decided to scrap the first two songs and go entirely with this musical direction instead. The song contains every musical element that represents this album, and in my opinion it should have been the single instead of The Devil's Orchard. It's pretty eclectic within itself, and is very enjoyable whichever way you look at it. Once again I'm loving the bass sound on this one, and Martin Axenrot gets to shine with his drum fills as well, probably more here than on any other track. "Folklore" is another song I'm thoroughly enjoying, and the passage with the quiet acoustic interlude leading to the last couple of minutes of the song is pure awesomeness. The album comes to a close with "Marrow Of The Earth", an instrumental track made up of the sweet combination of clean electric guitar riffs and an acoustic guitar rhythm, with the keyboard chiming in towards the end.

Opeth seem to have taken inspiration from a variety of influences, and overall I would describe it as a 70s progressive rock album more than anything else. This is the kind of album that will garner a different opinion from each set of Opeth fans, and it really comes down to personal taste. For fans who exclusively like the death-growl version of Opeth, this will take some getting used to, that's for sure. If you let go of any preconceived expectations you might have from Opeth and listen to it purely as an album, you are going to love it for the great musical composition it is. While every song is a brilliant piece that tells its own musical story, I would rate "Slither", "Famine", "The Lines In My Hand", "Folklore", and "Marrow Of The Earth" better than the others. But then that encompasses just about half the album, so the rest of it might well grow on me in the days to come.

I'm a huge fan of Mikael Akerfeldt's clean vocals and have listened to the Damnation album countless number of times for that very reason, and my only issue with Heritage is, there isn't nearly enough of it. The clean vocals were the part I was most looking forward to, more than the music itself to be honest, and the album leaves me slightly disappointed in that regard. With that being said, I love the album on the whole and rate it equal to each of their previous nine albums. A fantastic album indeed, and one that further proves that nothing is insurmountable for Akerfeldt when it comes to developing and executing fresh musical ideas. Go ahead and pick up this gem. You will not be disappointed.

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