The Opeth extreme metal versus prog era argument has a date attached to it, which is rare: 2011, and one album. Nobody was replaced, nobody fell out in public, and the same singer simply stopped using one of his two voices. Then, thirteen years later, he used it again. Here is what changed and when, with the line-ups, the records and where to start with each side of the line.

The one voice, and the other

Mikael Åkerfeldt has always sung in two registers: the clean voice and the death growl. The early Opeth albums use both, often inside the same piece, and that contrast – long acoustic passages next to extreme metal – is what made the band’s name. Heritage (2011) was the first album since Damnation (2003) to contain no growls at all, and, unlike Damnation, it was not a one-off: the growl did not return for thirteen years.

Before: 1995–2008

Eight albums, from Orchid (1995) and Morningrise (1996) through My Arms, Your Hearse (1998) and Still Life (1999) to the three records most newcomers start with: Blackwater Park (2001), Ghost Reveries (2005) and Watershed (2008). Two exceptions sit inside that run. Deliverance (2002) and Damnation (2003) were made as a pair, one heavy and one entirely without growls – which means the band had already shown the second era eight years before it began.

The turn: Heritage, 2011

Recording began in Stockholm on 31 January 2011, a few months after the band had played the Royal Albert Hall in a concert covering their whole catalogue. The album that came out of those sessions dropped the growls and moved towards the folk, blues, funk and 1970s rock that Åkerfeldt had long collected as a listener. The reaction split the audience, and the split has lasted.

After: 2011–2019

Pale Communion (2014), Sorceress (2016) and In Cauda Venenum (2019) continued in that direction; the last of the three was recorded in both Swedish and English and released in two complete versions. None of them uses death vocals.

And then the growls came back

The Last Will and Testament, released on 22 November 2024, is a concept album set after a will is read, and it brought back the growled vocals and the heavier elements for the first time since Watershed. It is also the first album with the drummer Waltteri Väyrynen, who replaced Martin Axenrot in 2022. It holds a score of 84 out of 100 on Metacritic, and it has had the odd effect of making the two eras look less like a break and more like a long detour.

The line-ups

Åkerfeldt is the constant, on guitar since 1990 and vocals since 1993. Martin Mendez has played bass since 1997 and Fredrik Åkesson guitar since 2007, so the band that made Watershed and the band that made Heritage share three of their five members. The keyboards changed at the same moment as the voice: Per Wiberg left in 2011 and Joakim Svalberg took his place. That is the whole personnel story of this argument, which is why it is really about a decision rather than a line-up.

Where to start with each era

Before: Blackwater Park (2001), the album most often named first, with Ghost Reveries as the next step and Still Life for anyone who wants the early band at length.

After: Pale Communion (2014), the most settled of the three, or Heritage itself if you want to hear the turn as it happened.

If you want both at once: The Last Will and Testament (2024), which is the only Opeth album that belongs to the two eras at the same time. For the catalogue in order there is my guide to Opeth albums ranked, and where to start with Opeth is the shorter route in.

Go deeper

For the band itself, start with the Opeth band guide, the best Opeth albums and the best Opeth songs. For the same argument in other bands, see the hub of prog rock’s great era debates and the piece on line-up changes that improved a band. The story of progressive rock from the 1980s to today, Opeth included, is the subject of Beyond the Decades, the fifth book in my Beyond the Sound series.

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