June 12, 2011
MAWOLS – A Brilliantly Foreshadowing Heritage (Opeth-preview) part 1 feat. ABBA
So, last week on tuesday, I was flown over to Stockholm, Sweden, as the honored lackey of Sue Magazine to take part in the pre-listening of Opeth’s upcoming new album, Heritage. It’s due for release late September and the specific purpose for me being there was to make a preliminary story base for September’s issue. Properly nice of Roadrunner Records’ PR-side to pay for the flight and set up a room at one of the local Best Western hotels. Google even claimed that it was a 4 star place. Very nifty for my standards so I took their word for it.
Cheers, Roadrunner!
Cheers again!
Before heading out to the highway, I was joined at the hotel by two Finnish colleagues. Let us refer to them here as Mr. Soundi and Mr. Inferno according to their respective magazines. Very jovial personalities and experts of their musical fandom fields. An appropriate amount of jibberjabber later we took the short walk to Atlantis Studios at 57 Karlsbergsvägen, where the upcoming album was recorded. A superb old school-feel hovered around the place, almost aura-like. Lots of vintage gear, both instruments and recording equipment. Even made the band relax appropriately when we were there:
The posing burden of a popular musician (although some of 'em took the moment to also enjoy the fruits of their labour).
Opeth opening the doors of perception, conception or maybe even inception. Take your pick. (from left to right, keyboardist Joakim Svalberg, bassist Martin Méndez, guitarist/singer Mikael Åkerfeldt, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson and drummer Martin "Axe" Axenrot)
Prior to the actual listening, we had a nice time chatting with the fellow reporters from around the world, the managerial people and nicely enough the guys of the band too. We Finns naturally did our best to try and taunt/milk a reaction from the band about the Finnish men’s national ice hockey team brutalizing the Swedes 6-1 (you might’ve heard about that if you’ve been reading this blog) but sadly, none of them were that much into hockey. Herr Svalberg maybe a little and even he mainly concentrated on admitting that on the day of the finals, there was one team on the ice and they crushed. Myself, Mr. Soundi and Mr. Inferno were naturally pleased.
Going back quickly into the old school-aura of the studio, I gotta bring up the awesome history of the place. Opened in the early 1940s, it has hosted quite the impressive list of musicians in roundabout 70 years. I found the ABBA-connection particularly groovy considering their stature as the Scandinavian megastars of probably forever. Seems they’ve recorded at least four of their albums at Atlantis, including songs like Waterloo, Take A Chance On Me, Thank You For The Music, Money, Money, Money… hey, you go and try remembering how many hits they had. As a cool gear-pic, here’s the piano that one of their biggest tunes, Dancing Queen, was recorded with:
You're a teaser, you turn 'em on!
Jande said,
June 17, 2011 at 11:23
Did Opeth use the opportunity and ask ABBA to quest on their album? I might actually have to listen that song…
btw, only now noticed your comments on my blog and answered them…
finnishwhatyastarted said,
June 19, 2011 at 23:35
Based on what I heard, ABBA was not featuring on there nor did the guys note that they would’ve asked Agnetha, Benny or anyone else to provide backing. Harmonically, that would’ve been intriguing no doubt.