Collection: Opeth

Opeth formed in Stockholm in 1990 and have spent the decades since making progressive metal feel unusually porous. Under singer, guitarist and songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt, the band’s music pulls in progressive rock, folk, blues, classical and jazz as readily as death metal, with acoustic passages and sharp shifts between growled and clean vocals becoming part of their signature.

Early records such as Orchid, Morningrise and My Arms, Your Hearse established their taste for long-form, restless songwriting, while Blackwater Park, Ghost Reveries and Watershed helped define their later reach. In 2011, Heritage marked a clear turn towards a more progressive rock-led sound and fully clean singing, a move they continued on Pale Communion and Sorceress without losing their appetite for weight or detail.