OPETH — Heritage (review)

Album · 2011 · Metal Related

3.5/5 · 2011-09-20
adg211288

Heritage is the tenth album from Swedish extreme progressive metal act Opeth. Or rather it’s the tenth album from the once extreme progressive metal act Opeth, as Heritage sees the band moving forward (or maybe that should be backwards), into more of a retro 70’s progressive rock sound, although it still has some metal touches and often some folk and jazz ones as well. It’s a much lighter and completely death growl free Opeth, but the album is certainly not Damnation part II. The album was released in 2011, ending the longest gap between the band’s studio albums to date. It is also the final album to feature keyboardist Per Wiberg, who parted ways with Opeth prior to the album’s release. You’ll notice that on the artwork with the band’s heads on the tree his is falling off to represent this.

Opeth has in my opinion always has a sound that was instantly recognisable as them, even on their previous ‘different’ album Damnation. Heritage therefore comes across as their attempt to break their own mould. Personally I don’t think they quite managed it, although they’ve certainly put a good crack in it all the same. Allow me to clarify further; there are still some sounds here that sound very much like the Opeth I know, but there are also a lot of sounds coming out of the band that I have never heard from them before, more than the sounds I know even, but after getting over the shock of the new direction it’s not too hard to hear some typical Opethian ideas during Heritage. It still sounds and feels like Opeth.

Heritage is easily Opeth’s most progressive album to date. They’ve always been progressive, being at the forefront of the extreme progressive metal movement, but here they’ve given their progressive nature centre focus over their metal side. There isn’t actually that much to do with metal on the album, although overall I do think it can still be classed as such...just, there are many tracks that aren’t metal at all, while those that are only just hit borderline territory. This means that if all you want to hear is their extreme progressive metal of previous releases you’ll be wasting your time with Heritage and can stop reading here safe in the knowledge that Heritage won’t be an album for you. But if you’re interested in what is Opeth’s most unique sounding album to date, then read on.

What’s most notable about Heritage is that the songs have a very different feel to each other, in contrast to earlier Opeth albums where apart from perhaps the odd ballad in the Damnation vein or close enough to it as to not make much of a difference the songs could be considered as being typical for the band. The prior album Watershed could be considered something of an exception to that rule as well as the first step towards Heritage with its major cutting down of Mikael Åkerfeldt’s growls and inclusion of pieces such as Coil and Burden along with more typical Opeth tracks like The Lotus Eater and what I personally consider to be one of their most death metal orientated tracks in Heir Apparent. On Heritage we’re treated to tracks that sound very different to each other, such as the fairly heavy The Devil’s Orchard, the rocky and then suddenly folksy Slither (a tribute to the late Ronnie James Dio), the flute drenched Famine and the beautiful vocal lines in the mostly instrumental Nepenthe. The album is also bookended by a couple of instrumentals, the piano title track piece to open up and the excellent closer Marrow of the Earth.

Heritage is a difficult album to really get into. I feel pretty safe in saying that it takes a lot of listens to really understand and appreciate it, more so than any other Opeth release, even the mellow Damnation. For a long time I just didn’t know what to really make of the album and because of that I’ve given Heritage a lot more listens than I do most albums before reviewing them. It doesn’t matter whether you have an interest in reviewing or not, I’d recommend doing the same before passing any judgement on Heritage. If you’re still reading this review hopefully that means you are actually interested in the direction Opeth has taken here (if you haven’t I did say you could stop reading a couple of paragraphs ago), so my advice is that if it doesn’t manage to click straight away (which it has a good chance not to in my opinion), to have a lot of patience and keep listening to it.

Even if it doesn’t totally click with you at first, I don’t think you’ll hate it either, I certainly didn’t, but neither did I regard it half as highly as I have come to after extensive listening. That’s why I’m glad I’ve given Heritage some intensive listening time. I’ve come to really appreciate the album as Opeth’s most unique release to date. Not their best release you must understand, but it’s most definitely their most unique. As started earlier Opeth have really tried to break their mould here and it’s mostly a success, in fact it may even be fairer to say it’s been a total success, as I do actually like the music retaining some identity to their past works. It just remains to be seen at this point whether they’ll (and yeah by that I mean Mikael Åkerfeldt) repair the mould they just put a major crack in, or break this one all the way and end up in an entirely new mould. Or perhaps neither. If there’s one thing Heritage proves it’s that Opeth isn’t a one trick pony (to be honest I knew that already, but now there can be no doubt), and after this I’m not really going to know what to expect from them in the future.

So ultimately how does one go about grading an album like Heritage? For the extreme metal fan this album scores literally nothing, but for the progressive fan this is potentially an absolute gem of an album. I have to be fair even now this is not my favourite Opeth album (it’s not my least favourite either though, far from it actually), and I can’t say I prefer this style over their typical which is why, like with Damnation, I’d like this album to be a one off in their discography, but as stated above, they could really go anywhere after this, which does give me a few concerns. For what it is I actually think that Heritage is a really great album and like most of Opeth’s work it’s very masterfully done and full of exceptional material. It wouldn’t be right to not give this a very high score, but it is worth noting that it is rated solely from the perspective of the prog fan rather than the extreme metal fan, which I think is the only fair way to rate Heritage, much like Damnation in that respect. Based on this I have to say that Heritage may not quite stand with this very good year’s best albums, it does only just fall short.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven, scored at 9.4/10, "Very Exceptional Album")

more than 2 years ago
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The Angry Scotsman wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Took me a few listens as well but hey, sometimes that's good. In fact I'm still not quite ready to write a review despite like 10 listens now lol
Good album for sure!

adg211288 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

It certainly needs a lot of listens either way IMO. I really didn't know what to make of it at first. Definitely not an album that really grabs right away, but neither one to write off quickly either.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I´m not overwhelmed yet, so I´ll wait until I´m more accustomed to the album before I´ll write a review.

Stephen wrote:

more than 2 years ago

really love this album, very 70s, very jazzy, definitely understand why most old-time Opeth fans don't like it, you can't find any growl at all lol hm i'll find time to give it another listen and probably write a review myself, good job friend!

Grann73 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Thanks for a carefully thought out review. I expect my copy of the cd to arrive in the mail tomorrow or the day after and now I know how to approach it.

bonnek wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Indeed, this sure isn't a 'love at first sight' album. At first, I found it enjoyable, but not really captivating, even slightly incoherent really. That is changing for the good now after about 10 listens.