Album Review: Opeth - The Last Will And Testament

Few bands frustrate me as much as Opeth does, and it has nothing to do with the band themselves. Ever since they decided to shift away from their death metal roots, the conversation around the band has always been about the absence of growls, and whether they will ever return. Often, it feels like more of the audience cared about how Mikael chose to vocalize than on whether or not the music he was making was any good.

That raised questions in my mind about the nature of being a fan. I heard so many people pining for a certain sound that it made me wonder if they were even listening to the music at all. Were they the types who were enjoyed the tone of growling, and would therefore be happy with any songs so long as they had the 'right' sound? That line of thought is so foreign to me, I have a hard time trying to imagine the way it works in their minds.

Surely, Opeth's quality as musicians has to be independent of the presence of growling, right?

That is the question "The Last Will And Testament" attempts to answer, as it is very much a late-stage Opeth album, but with a few growls thrown into the mix. When the opening "S1" was released, the entire discourse was centered on Mikael's deathly roar returning. It was suffocating, and completely ignored the fact the song itself was beyond mediocre. Mikael has been struggling to write riffs and melodies with any sort of hook to them for many years, and "S1" was a bunch of intricate noodling that didn't amount to a single memorable moment of music. Unless, of course, you get off on growling.

I do not, which means I am probably approaching this album from a different perspective than most. My favorite Opeth albums are from the death metal era, and I have likewise been disappointed by prog-era Opeth, but the two things are corrolary, not causal.

This record has a massive, glaring, unavoidable flaw that renders it nearly unlistenable before even hitting play. "The Last Will And Testament" is a concept album about a family of entitled rich assholes arguing over the will of the deceased, complete with voice-over narration. Basically, that means unless you want to spend an hour listening to songs that are barely songs about greedy people being greedy, there isn't a single thing to this record worth hearing. That's the short of it.

The long of it is that this record expands on everything that has been wrong with Opeth for years. The return of growling cannot mask the fact that Mikael has gone so far down the prog rabbit hole he no longer thinks writing memorable songs is part of his job description. Opeth became legendary not for writing long songs, but for imbuing their long songs with unforgettable riffs and melodies. You can't listen to "Blackwater Park" without being struck by the melodies in "Bleak" and "The Funeral Portrait". That stuff used to come easily to Opeth, who straddled genres, but now are as dead in them as the character in this album is.

'Prestige tv' is the name we give for dramas that want to make you think they are saying something important, when all they really do is waste a bunch of time watching bad people do boring things. This record is the musical equivalent of that. There is lovely cinematography, and some of the acting is flawless, but the story and dialogue are so trite you can't even parody the stuff. Of course, there is also the question I ask about many albums of this sort; If this is a concept album telling a story, why is so much of it instrumental? How does that advance the plot?

There are bands that stick with you for your entire life, and bands you outgrow as your tastes change. Then there is a third category, which are bands that make you feel insane for ever liking them at all. That is where Opeth has headed, and where I find myself right now. I still consider "Bleak" one of my favorite songs of all time, and "Ghost Of Perdition" is a masterpiece of the genre, but I can't help myself from wondering if that version of Opeth was Mikael struggling to be the musician he wanted to be, while this record is his final form. If so, enjoying someone's shortcomings more than their success is a perverse form of fandom, and I'm not sure if I should carry on in that case.

Opeth haven't just made a terrible album with "The Last Will And Testament", they have made a terrible album they think is brilliant art. That just makes the whole thing feel that much sadder.

Goodbye, Opeth. You're dead to me... until I need content again.