In a recent interview with MusicRadar, Opeth frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt talked about modern metal albums and their sound. The singer thinks they don’t sound right because ‘everything is quantized down to a tee’ and bands need to start embracing imperfections.
“Yeah, and that is something you don’t get in the demo,” Åkerfeldt said when the interviewer noted ‘there is humanity in imperfection.’ “If you listen to my demo, it’s f*cking perfect, and I am – again – a defender of the human sound, which is why I am not necessarily crazy about modern metal records, where everything is quantised down to a tee, and it’s perfect, it’s computerised. It just doesn’t sound right to me.”
“The demos I do are like that. It’s good to have a perfect template and then you kind of f*ck it up a little bit when you record it, and it becomes a human-sounding record in the end,” he added.
The topic came up as Åkerfeldt discussed his solo on the track ‘Paragraph Six’ from Opeth’s upcoming 14th studio album, ‘Last Will and Testament.’ According to him, this was the only solo that wasn’t re-recorded from the demo tapes. Åkerfeldt recorded the solo himself using a Telecaster and a virtual amp, and he was so pleased with the result that he decided to keep it.
In addition to this, When Opeth released the first single from the album, titled ‘§1,’ fans were excited to hear that frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt had returned to using harsher tones and growling. While many saw it as a return to earlier days, the frontman explained it differently.
“I wanted to try it out. I had been thinking, and we had been talking in the band that we should, maybe we could try and see what happens if we write something that’s slightly heavier,” he explained. “And I felt I wanted to try and see if I could write music and fit that type of vocals on to new music. And I hadn’t done that for many years… It’s been a while. So I wrote a few parts and tried the death metal vocals, and it sounded awesome. Besides, it also provided a different voice to this character in the story. It became an asset that I haven’t really had the need for, for the last four albums. But now it was an asset that actually could be beneficial for the whole concept, for the whole record. It sounded awesome too. I’m happy.”
With the singles released so far, ‘The Last Will and Testament’ is shaping up to be a strong album. The album is scheduled for release on November 22. Opeth will also be touring in North America and Europe, with new dates recently announced.
