Opeth to release new album in September

Sweden’s most revered and respected progressive metal mavens Opeth will release Heritage, their third album for Roadrunner, on September 16th . The first video and single will be the song “The Devil’s Orchard”. Heritage follows up 2008’s Watershed and 2005’s Ghost Reveries, each of which garnered the forward-thinking, genre-bending band some of the best reviews of their career.

Opeth frontman and guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt weighed in on Heritage, saying, "It will be our 10th album/observation. I dig it; we all do. In fact, it feels like I've been building up to write for and participate on an album like this since I was 19."

Åkerfeldt went a little deeper and described the music contained within Heritage, saying, "It's quite intense at times in some 'old' murky way, and quite beautiful and stark at times, if I may say so myself. It's obvious I'm going to say nice things about it since I wrote basically the whole piece, but I guess it will raise a few eyebrows and it certainly is an acquired taste. I think you'll need a slightly deeper understanding of our music as a whole to be able to appreciate this record. I've realized my influences for this album are so diverse that I can't really say what it sounds like. If I can compare it to any other band, it would have to be Opeth, but it's different from the stuff we've done before. I've listened a lot to Alice Cooper for the last year, yet I can't say it sounds like 'No More Mr. Nice Guy'. I hope you'll like it once you hear it."

The album was produced by Åkerfeldt and mixed along with Porcupine Tree frontman/guitarist Steven Wilson. Longtime collaborator Travis Smith also worked with Åkerfeldt to create, design and execute the album’s artwork.