HERITAGE

In some ways, prog metal stalwarts Opeth putting out an album which is all-prog, no-metal wasn't so unprecedented when Heritage was released. After all, Damnation had come out nearly a decade earlier.

However, come to Heritage expecting Damnation Part 2 - or, for that matter, something sounding anything like Opeth releases past - and you'll find yourself extremely surprised. You see, that Damnation comparison overlooks the fact that Deliverance and Damnation were always meant to be one album, and when they were split in two the harder, heavier, more energetic numbers ended up on Deliverance and the softer, gentler numbers ended up on Damnation, accounting for the sedated, tranquilised feel of that album.

That's not the case here: Heritage has a mixture of gentler numbers and more thunderous ones, that blend being captured by gentle piano intro - the title track, Heritage - which then leads into The Devil's Orchard, one of the more energetic tracks on the album. And it's on Devil's Orchard where you really hear the difference - because it's very much a prog rock track, not a prog metal track.

At most, you might be able to catch a hint of fury in Martin Axenrot's drum work, but even then he's hardly pulling out the blast beats, and the rest of the band really are not playing in a metal mode at all, instead shifting to performances mixing classic prog of the past with more modern takes. Sections of I Feel the Dark take on a very Porcupine Tree- esque sound, perhaps inevitably given Steven Wilson's presence at the mixing desk, whilst the heaviest moments on the album are more reminiscent of, say, Atomic Rooster rather than Black Sabbath (or perhaps, as at the start of Slither, one can detect a shade of Deep Purple).

Naturally, more or less all the vocals are clean, which I feel is the album's weak point - Mikael Åkerfeldt just isn't that exciting of a lead vocalist. Other than this, it's another interesting departure in the Opeth catalogue; I personally enjoy it, but those who only find Opeth interesting when they have at least a pinch of death metal in their formula will likely be disappointed.