Opeth @ Copenhell 2022
Expect the expected
It's a well-known fact that Opeth aren't exactly the world's most extraverted live act. I've seen them 9 or 10 times since the 2003 "Damnation" tour, and while it's always nice to get your prog on, they still rely on vocalist/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt's dry, quirky humor as the sole element of release amidst all the demanding music – which, as seems to be the case, they consider interesting enough to stand on its own.
In the grand scheme, this approach still works for them. Personally, while their newest, prog-rock oriented creative direction has only gradually started to resonate with me, I still never got into their latest output, 2019's "In Cauda Venenum", so the opener "Hjärtat Vet Vad Handen Gör" ("The Heart Knows What the Hand Does") fails to catch me up front. (Although I haven't actually heard the Swedish version so far, so there's always that.)
Then there's "Ghost of Perdition". And while some will claim that this is the album where Opeth started getting boring (and those people could be said to have a point), there's still no arguing with either the heaviness or the mind-blowing rollercoaster structure here. While the crowd doesn't exactly go wild, we're syncing with the band at this point, not least spurred on by certain phrases that have become pure nostalgia for many of us:
Devil cracked the earthly shell
Foretold she was the one
Blew hope into the room and said,
"You have to live before you die young"...
Another newer song, "The Devil's Orchard", is another test of my bias toward their earlier material, softened mostly by Åkerfeldt's playfully teasing remarks about Stockholm being the "capital of Scandinavia". And hey, for all I care, they can go ahead and have that one.
As Åkerfeldt mentions 2001's magisterial "Blackwater Park", a warm, collective hum of recognition dissipates through the crowd, and "The Drapery Falls" collects the biggest applause and singalong this time around. And indeed, with hauntingly beautiful melodies like that, you'd either be a cold-hearted sumbitch or a complete musical ignorant not to get carried away. And those lyrics, man...
Please remedy my confusion
And thrust me back to the day
The silence of your seclusion
Brings night into all you say
There's a recurring theme going on at this point: "Sorceress" is another new song – and arguably one of the better ones from the band's later years. I shoulda really been digging deeper into those newer albums, but I haven't. And if you want just one good explanation for that, the concluding "Deliverance" could very well be it.
Composition-wise, atmosphere-wise, production-wise... it simply doesn't get any better than this one track. In death metal, in progressive metal, in any genre of metal and beyond. This is unsurpassed musical magnificence from a band which is far from my favorite, although I obviously appreciate them.
So, not exactly any surprises this time around – but it's not like anyone here was expecting it. What we did rightly expect was an hour's somewhat introverted performance of inarguable professionalism. This is what we got, and it's so professional I'd gladly take it again at any festival.
Rating: 4.5 out of 6
Genre: Progressive metal / rock
Venue: Copenhell, Hades stage
Date: Thurs., 16/6/2022
Setlist:
- Hjärtat Vet Vad Handen Gör
- Ghost of Perdition
- The Devil's Orchard
- The Drapery Falls
- Sorceress
- Deliverance