Opeth - "The Last Will and Testament"
Family is more than blood
This is the first Opeth album since 2019’s In Cauda Venenum. It’s been five years, which means this release is already, inherently, a big deal. It’s also the first time I’ve gotten to write about Opeth on this platform, so I’m going to take a little time to explain why it’s a big deal for anybody who isn’t familiar with the band.
So if you’re a long-time metalhead, feel free to scroll on down.
If you’re not really into Metal, but you’re reading this anyhow — or if you’re recently getting into Metal and don’t recognize them — then I want to make sure you’re aware that Opeth are widely considered to be a legendary act; this is one of those instances where this is your favorite band’s favorite band. Their debut album dropped in 1995, so next year is its 30th anniversary (ouch!), and since then they have inspired so many others.
If you want to quickly sample their older material, check out “Blackwater Park” (Blackwater Park), “Death Whispered a Lullaby” (Damnation), and “Porcelain Heart” (Watershed).
That debut album, Orchid, was Prog Death and Black Metal — notably, it is among the earliest Progressive Death records out there, giving it almost outsized influence as more acts started looking to fuse Progressive Metal and burgeoning Extreme Metal genres. Opeth didn’t reach critical acclaim until 2001’s Blackwater Park, though, by which point they had begun to play with light and heavy contrasts, musically reconstructing the groundbreaking efforts of Rembrandt in visual art.
They highlighted these differences with a pair of albums in 2002 (Deliverance) and 2003 (Damnation). Deliverance was all of Opeth’s heaviest styles delivered as an onslaught; Damnation, which was the album that introduced me to them, was entirely comprised of their lighter side, leaning more Rock than Metal for much of its playtime. This duality was a core feature of their sound, but as the band aged, the balance shifted further and further, with the band’s sound softening as the years wear on. 2008’s Watershed was the last album to have any harsh vocals at all.
Until now.
That’s the other thing that makes The Last Will and Testament such a big deal — Opeth has implemented Death Metal elements, specifically the growls, again. For years, fans of classic Opeth have pined for that original sound. Mikael Akerfeldt has faced the question of why he stopped using harsh vocals for years, and basically the answer was that he didn’t feel that they fit the sound that the band was pursuing at the time. Finally, though, Opeth have crafted an album where they felt that the harsh vocals belonged.
The Last Will and Testament, Opeth’s 14th studio album, is a concept album which tells the story of a family gathered to listen to the reading of their patriarch’s will. The first seven (out of eight, total) tracks are titled as section numbers using the legalese abbreviation (“§1”, §2”, “§3”, etc). As the will is read, family secrets are exposed by the deceased.
The album doesn’t waste any time getting into the heavy, harsh vocals — the first two songs, with over ten minutes of play time combined, are largely dominated by Akerfeldt’s growls. The only exception on these two songs are the lines spoken by Ian Anderson, who some may recognize as the long-time vocalist of Jethro Tull.
These first two tracks give the impression that harsh vocals will be used whenever the deceased father, who is described as a “stern, old, conservative, paranoid, evil, noble fuck”, is speaking through the reading of the will. However, “§3” usurps this.
And this is the first issue I want to raise with the album — I’ve always found harsh vocals most tolerable when there is some clear logical or emotional need for them. I rarely find them attractive on their own, and they feel like a blunt, graceless instrument in most cases. Mikael Akerfeldt’s usage of them, as gorgeous as his voice is otherwise, is no exception.
My other major complaint is with the execution of the concept. While the concept is novel and compelling, the scope of the narration is incredibly limited. I enjoy that each paragraph gets its own song, but there is nothing given outside of the reading — several of the story’s major players are only mentioned in passing. The fact that the children who thought themselves legitimate are a pair of male/female twins is only mentioned very briefly in “§4”, and yet it’s such a sharp turn that the person annotating the lyrics in Genius was clearly confused by it, thinking that the narrator is still talking about the third child.
There’s also confusion about their parentage; Akerfeldt describes them as “the result of a donor procreation”1 (because his wife was infertile) when he’s giving the overview of the album’s story, and the line “birthed a controversial plan” goes along with that; but then there’re the lines “swallowed my shame/like a man of affairs” (not to mention the ultimate reveal that he was the one who was infertile).2 Why should he swallow his shame when nobody was intended to know of this donor scheme, anyhow? Unless it was his wife who got pregnant by another man.
Something doesn’t add up, unless I’ve totally missed something.
With all of that said, the album does do a really solid job of managing its thematic concerns, which relate to what familial bonds actually mean and why bloodlines are so important to us, as well as whether it’s possible to truly make amends when you’re standing at death’s door. The character of the father, as dismally as Akerfeldt describes him, is very complex, almost confusingly so, and I think that that element of the album was incredibly well done. His motives are both clear and indiscernible. After all, he’s dying when he makes these decisions, writes/dictates these words.
Dying tends to make a mess of everything.
Musically, there are a lot of strong moments here, especially once you get past the shock-and-awe of the first two songs. That’s when we start to get into a lot of the contrasting tones which Opeth does so well. Not to mention some truly delicious grooves. I think “§5” is my favorite, overall.
The Last Will and Testament is divisive, for me. I’ve been looking forward to it, and it demonstrates the band’s inimitable talents, but the issues I noted really drag it down for me. Others who are not so put off by harsh vox will likely enjoy it more, especially since part of my disappointment is my complete inability to get into the first two tracks. So call it a 7.5-ish for me.
Rating: Green
And, note, the album’s setting is sometime after WWI, so “donor procreation” would likely be him having children with another woman with his wife’s blessing so that they could be parents. Their illegitimacy would then be because this other woman had an affair which sullied the arrangement.
In the album’s final track, “A Story Never Told”, it is revealed (supposedly, through a letter arriving years later from the Heiress’ mother) that the Heiress is, shocker, not actually the father’s child.