July 10, 2011
MAWOLS – A Brilliantly Foreshadowing Heritage (Opeth-preview) part 3
Well, it seems that the second part of my Opeth-adventure (and subsequently the first) got around a little bit via linkage to several forums. Readership risen to the hundreds for both of them, cheers. I’m glad people have seemingly liked it, even to the point of prog-o-shopping one of the photos I had taken and attached to part 2. Observe Mikael Åkerfeldt in his über-70s trumpet trousers:
courtesy of Dusk
Just a few notes from the commentary that I caught from places like opethforum.com…first and foremost, to thoughts like this:
“I was hoping for at least some heavy riffs.”
There ARE heavy riffs. Plenty of them. Chill, mates. Well ok, if your definition of heavy riffs goes along lines like “death metal or no metal at all”, then you may be up shite creek without even a boat. But taking it mostly from a 70s heavy rock/early-years-metal point of view, there are oodles of heavy bits. It bears repeating, Heritage will not be Damnation 2 or Loungenation 1.
And speaking of the jazz, to anyone possibly weirded out by my numerous references to renowned jazz pianists concerning the sounds on Heritage…no, it’s not that jazzy. Or is it? Well, I can say that namedropping the likes of Thelonious Monk and Herbie Hancock were more just impulsive notes made on the spot while in the studio. I mainly added them to these posts for a laugh. But don’t let this disclaimer make you think that suddenly there’s no jazz on the upcoming record, because there is. It’s just done the Opeth way. Which also makes me want to hear Opeth covering Monk’s Straight, No Chaser and Hancock’s Chameleon. Those could be some awesome pieces of fusion.
But where was I, as far as the trip goes…well yes, the album was listened, awesome stuff. Improptu photo sessions were had around the studio along with me just scurrying around and snapping shots here and there (I’ll attach some of those to the bottom). A little more conversing with the band, thanking them at large and we were off to Stockholm’s food-and-drink circuit with Mr. Soundi and Mr. Inferno. Good chicken wings, moderate beer.
A little later on Mr. Soundi contacted a very groovy friend of his. Let’s call him Mr. Director due to his extensive background at directing music videos and concert video recordings for commendably big bands. We visited his extremely nifty pad in Stockholm that clearly had taken a handsome budget to acquire and enjoyed some of his yet-to-be-released footage with a little whiskey. An extremely gracious host, I say. He also took the time to show us to one of his nearby pubs that also featured a special guest appearance from one Mr. Peter Tägtgren, the man surely best known to metalheads as the frontman of Hypocrisy, Pain and the mad professor lording over The Abyss-studios.
So overall, good times great memories were had. After just a day on the road for this mission, returning to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport was a lightly bewildering exprience in the “Well, I guess that actually happened, cool”-sense. Less than 6 months after starting to write stuff for Sue Magazine they (with the gracious help of Opeth’s PR-agency of course) had shipped me to listen to the new Opeth-record over 3 months in advance, chitchat with the guys and otherwise rummage around Stockholm for a day. Heck, sign me up for more.
Guess that’s about it for the trilogy unless I get up to add more photos later to make it a quadrilogy (If Indiana Jones could, why couldn’t I?). Anyhoo, thanks for reading! If you’re left with questions, comments or insults, that’s what the LEAVE a COMMENT-clickable below is for 
Oh yeah, some more pictures:
Reading material in the studio feat. world's smallest road case
I'll bet you Roger Waters didn't have this many balls on his Wall (shot in an appropriately old school slight-sepia tone)
Overview of the studio space where the listening took place
Chamber of bells, whistles and keys
Forest of Octo...I mean microphones
The producermixer's point of view (again in an appropriately old school slight-sepia tone)
Overhead view of the main room
Yours in hotdamnIwanttobuythisrecordalready,
-Aleksi-
Lydia said,
August 20, 2011 at 20:54
Thanks for sharing. These were a great read. Was the footage that you watched at Mr Director’s taken from the studio or listening session?
finnishwhatyastarted said,
August 25, 2011 at 11:22
Much obliged. And to clear a seeming misunderstanding understandably created by my post, Mr. Director’s upcoming footage was not linked to Opeth in any way. Swedish bands yes as the stuff was upcoming live and video material from Hypocrisy and Pain but his part in my tale was entirely independent from Opeth-related events.