June 27, 2011
MAWOLS – A Brilliantly Foreshadowing Heritage (Opeth-preview) part 2
So, after waiting for a few hours worth of pleasantries with the obligatory smörgåsbord and red wine…
Why thank you, don't mind if I do...
…meeting the veteran in charge of mixing the new album (dude’s resume even included some Bowie and Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma) and all that civilized bruhahaa, it was time to sit down with a pen and paper in the main studio room and take in Heritage in a fiercely commendable 5.1 Surround Sound-setting (yes, meaning amazing sound quality).
Now, I naturally/unfortunately can’t spill the beans to the kind of extent where I’d run down all the material in reserve for the September-issue of Sue (interview and track-by-track rundown with main man Mikael Åkerfeldt included), but here’s a barrage of some possibly intriguing notes that made it onto my paper:
- “Really going classical with this piano intro.”
- “Upright bass, jazzy-style, really? Sweet. Will there be rockabilly?”
- “The Deep Purple-fan in me grins widely.”
- “Getting folky, Jethro Tully, I see what they did there.”
- “ORGANFLOODS OF THE APOCALYPSE!!!¤#”%!”!!”
- “Lots of haunting noises going on again…”
- “The production definitely old school yet clear and punchy, I can dig it.”
- “Man, 5 songs in and not a single growl.”
- “Mereckons however many death metal purists have stuck on board so far are jumping off at this pier.”
- “Well, this is really Opeth gone jazz.”
- “Thelonius Åkerfeldt…well, maybe not quite.”
- “Samples of speech and coughing…I say, ghostly again.”
- “Then perhaps instead Mikael Hancock…or maybe hand-in-cock if we asked him directly…”
- “Widdly widdly guitar antics still provided, flourishes of bongos, maybe djembes, percussionomics…”
- “FLUTES! YES!”
- “Now that’s a nice serving of gorgeous acoustic guitars…very, very fitting.”
Ok, so you may get the idea. To summarize to an extent…first off, there was not a single growl on the record. Death metal was just not on the menu for this one. Instead there was a barrage of groovy 70s influences from the haziness of Pink Floyd to the rocking of Rainbow. Yes, plenty of rocking going on, distorted guitars, epic riffage etc. The absence of guttural demonics has not led to a rerun of Damnation (for the uninitiated: it’s Opeth’s most “newagey”, soothing and non-distorted album). I repeat that the drenched-in-70s covers many, many aspects. Old school maniacs like myself will be ecstatic, methinks. I mean cripes sakes, just look at the already-released cover art:
Roadrunner Records 2011
We’ve got the earth, the sky and Hell with the assorted diabolicals, the band’s faces ripening on the tree and a magical city of flames in the background…it just oozes the prog and psychedelia of the 1970s. Brilliant. Also, colour- and vibe-wise it reminds me of King Crimson’s In The Wake Of Poseidon:
King Crimson circa 1970
Great stuff. Just reading through my notes here I recall that the listening experience was a great one and I can’t wait to get the actual end product, album sleeves and all, into my grasp and into my hearing system, repeated ad nauseum.
Fhew, that ended up quite lenghty on its own. I’ll actually get back to a flurry of more studio pictures and assorted gobbeldygook about the evening in Stockholm in the now-confirmed part 3! Don’t worry, it’ll come out much sooner than part 2 did 
Yours in getthisalbumreleasedalready,
-Aleksi-
