Before attending the OPETH concert this time, many fans of the collective had mixed feelings — your humble servant was no exception. I had a sufficiently clear idea of what the celebrated Swedes would be playing, and had even listened through the forthcoming set in its studio form several times. This made things doubly intriguing, since it was difficult to predict what overall impression would result.
First and foremost, a few words about the studio work itself. The first album stripped of any metal component and closer in genre to psychedelic rock was recorded by OPETH in 2003; it was called Damnation. Following its release, a tour took place on which the new album was performed in its entirety, alongside songs of similar structure and sound from previous albums. The heavy riffs and growling were entirely absent — there was even a cover of "Soldier of Fortune," which one could hardly call a rouser. Literally within a few months of Damnation's release the collective's concert set list was shifted toward a Best Of... format, and aggressive, extreme compositions — the ones that had made OPETH famous — returned to the programme. The next album, Ghost Reveries, absorbed much of the Damnation aesthetic, though the proportion of clean vocals and contemplative passages was comparatively smaller. Then came Watershed, on which OPETH once again presented themselves as an extreme progressive metal band; the tour in support of that record saw OPETH visit russia for the first time. Finally, last year saw the release of Heritage — received with such divided opinion. As Mikael Åkerfeldt admitted in an interview, having already written the first two songs in the Watershed style, he began the process again from scratch, discarding those compositions entirely. The result, to be fair, was a brilliant progressive rock album — quite energetic, fast, with a very interesting rock-and-roll element. The heaviness of Watershed had gone; the psychedelia and melancholy of Damnation were present only in the most fragmentary way. Perhaps the only thing Heritage and Damnation genuinely share is the absence of extreme vocals.
The concert began with a comparatively small delay of half an hour; regrettably, for the second time one has to note that the audience was, to put it mildly, not very large — approximately what comes to many quite ordinary bands. To speak of OPETH demonstrating brilliant technical playing, perfect tightness, and so on would be entirely pointless — that goes without saying. What is considerably more interesting is how the band structured the concert compositionally. The intro "Through Pain to Heaven," which opens the current tour, belongs to the German krautrock collective POPOL VUH — to be precise, it is the soundtrack to the film Nosferatu the Vampyre — or rather the 1978 remake of the silent film of the same name from the 1920s, starring the once-quite-famous French actress Isabelle Adjani. An interesting choice, especially since POPOL VUH today is practically forgotten, as is krautrock in general. But now the band was on stage; the intro and the first words of "The Devil's Orchard" from the latest album rang out; immediately after it came "I Feel the Dark" — practically fully instrumental. The third number in the set fitted in remarkably well: "Face of Melinda" from the band's fourth album Still Life (1999). The greater part of this composition is acoustic — but what has always distinguished OPETH is that their acoustic passages never become tiresome, despite all their apparent monotony. "Slither" from the new album — arguably the most unexpected track on the album — creates the impression both in the studio and live that DEEP PURPLE is playing; only the vocals give away that it is not them. Then came "Credence" — one of the band's earliest melancholy compositions, from as far back as 1997 — followed by "To Rid the Disease" from the much-discussed Damnation, in the recording of which Steven Wilson (PORCUPINE TREE) played an active role, and this composition is the finest evidence of that. Finally, "Folklore" rang out — from my purely subjective standpoint, a genuine masterpiece; the final two and a half minutes are perhaps one of the most beautiful and atmospheric musical moments Åkerfeldt has ever created. An hour slipped by imperceptibly — and what followed was a sharp instruction to wake up, directed equally at those who had loved the seven songs just played and at those waiting for incisive extreme compositions. But first Mikael received a gift — they handed him a Cheburashka, and for around half a minute the Swedish frontman vainly tried to work out what kind of strange creature it was. Perhaps someone expected "Let the Clumsy Ones Run," but instead the astonishing "Heir Apparent" from the latest album rang out, followed immediately by two more ten-minute tracks — "The Grand Conjuration" and "The Drapery Falls." For the encore, naturally, the title track "Deliverance" from the 2002 album had been kept in reserve.
Drawing conclusions in this situation seems entirely superfluous to me. OPETH played a unique programme, presenting sequentially their two different but so deeply connected incarnations, and the sound was set up this time considerably better than the previous occasion at 1ROCK (P!PL). What comes next — whether the death metal elements will remain solely within BLOODBATH or will once again be integrated into new OPETH songs, what form the concert programmes will take in the future — only time will tell.
Setlist:
- The Devil's Orchard
- I Feel the Dark
- Face of Melinda
- Slither
- Credence
- To Rid the Disease
- Folklore
- Heir Apparent
- The Grand Conjuration
- The Drapery Falls
Encore: 11. Deliverance
Special thanks to Spika Concert Agency and personally to Vera Dmitrieva for the accreditation provided