{"id":4004,"date":"2013-05-27T05:13:14","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T09:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=4004"},"modified":"2013-05-27T05:13:14","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T09:13:14","slug":"opeth-mixing-metal-and-melodicism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2013\/05\/27\/opeth-mixing-metal-and-melodicism\/","title":{"rendered":"Opeth: Mixing Metal and Melodicism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Initially a Swedish death metal band, Opeth<\/strong> has since its 1990 inception in Stockholm expanded both its sound and its appeal. While the band was an exemplar of the hard-edged sound, they have proven to be masters at mixing metal and melodicism. In May 2013 the band played a twelve-song headlining set at Asheville’s Orange Peel. Days before the show, I spoke with drummer Martin Axenrot<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center>Axenrot is currently drummer in two bands besides Opeth (Swedish speed\/death metal bands Bloodbath<\/strong> and Witchery<\/strong>). I asked him if he adapts his style to fit the different bands. \u201cI listen to hear what sort of things they’re [each] searching for,\u201d he says. Axenrot stresses the importance of getting it right, avoiding what he calls the \u201cArnold Schwarzenegger in a romantic movie\u201d effect.<\/p>\n

Mikael \u00c5kerfeldt<\/strong> essentially writes all of the music for Opeth. When he brings the songs into the studio, he creates demos for them. But he affords his band mates creative latitude: for 2011’s Heritage<\/em>, Axenrot says, Opeth \u201cplayed the songs live in the studio\u201d and, in the process, refined each of their individual parts. \u00c5kerfeldt did, Axenrot chuckles, \u201ctell us what he thought of what we [each] did. But mainly, we recorded the drum parts live.\u201d He makes the point that it is more important to \u201cplay what the song needs than to just play a cool drum part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Axenrot played on one track on 2005’s Ghost Reveries<\/em>, and then everything on Watershed<\/em> (2008) and Heritage<\/em>, plus two live albums The Roundhouse Tapes<\/em> (2007) and In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall<\/em>, released in 2010. He has been a key member of the band as Opeth has transitioned from strictly death metal to a balance between that and progressive rock. \u201cThat was my fault,\u201d Axenrot laughs. \u201cWe lived together very much on tour, and we talked about it a lot. We thought it would be cool to [make] an album where we show different sides, maybe, of the songs we had done before.\u201d (On the night I saw them at the Orange Peel, Opeth recast \u201cDemon of the Fall\u201d from their 1998 album My Arms, Your Hearse<\/em> into a lovely \u2013 and highly effective — acoustic piece.) So that approach informed the compposition and arrangement of the songs that would form Heritage<\/em>. But Axenrot stresses that this varied approach isn’t really that new for the band: \u201cAll of us have always done different sorts of things on all the albums.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/center>Nonetheless, the shift from death metal to an embracing of a wider array of styles has had some other effects upon the band. \u201cMaybe the crowd is a little older now,\u201d Axenrot observes. And he notes that younger fans \u201care interested in some of the older bands; they want to know who we ware influenced by.\u201d Many fans \u2013 especially those for whom death metal is not their preferred genre — came to learn about Opeth through their connection with Porcupine Tree<\/strong>‘s Steven Wilson<\/strong>, a frequent collaborator of \u00c5kerfeldt’s, and co-producer of some of their albums including 2003’s breakthrough Damnation<\/em>. Axenrot says that his own father initially didn’t greatly enjoy the harder-edged side of Opeth’s music, but that eventually it grew on him and \u201che understands it\u201d now.<\/p>\n

Opeth’s stage show avoids the spectacle common to some rock acts; Axenrot says the bands avoids the \u201cpyrotechincs; it’s about the music.\u201d Onstage, \u00c5kerfeldt and Axenrot are joined by Mart\u00edn M\u00e9ndez<\/strong> on bass, guitarist Fredrik \u00c5kesson<\/strong>, and Joakim Svalberg<\/strong> on keyboards. They prefer to let the music speak for itself, serving up a mixture of growling, thunderous death metal and soaring, prog\/space-rock textures.<\/p>\n

Heritage<\/em> was released in September 2011, more than a year and a half ago. And at present the band is in the midst of a tour. But Axenrot says that \u201cMikael has a few songs already. You never know if those songs are going to be the ones on a new album, though,\u201d he cautions. He hopes that \u2013 after the tour and some festival dates \u2013 Opeth will enter the studio \u201clate this year\u201d to begin work on a studio followup to Heritage<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Initially a Swedish death metal band, Opeth has since its 1990 inception in Stockholm expanded both its sound and its appeal. While the band was an exemplar of the hard-edged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,44,46],"tags":[237,1415,1623,1625],"class_list":["post-4004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","category-live-shows","category-metal","tag-asheville","tag-martin-axenrot","tag-opeth","tag-orange-peel","cat-41-id","cat-44-id","cat-46-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}