It was successful too, as the three and a half minute promo was enough to convince Candlelight Records to sign Opeth onto their roster. They hadn’t released even a demo at this stage as the Apostle in Triumph recording that is often passed as such is simply a leaked promo the band had sent to labels in an attempt to get a record deal. ![]() In March 1994, Opeth were ready to record their debut album. The blast beats and satanic imagery were gone and acoustic sections and harmonies had become the norm. Numerous line-up changes had occurred and even Isberg left the band in 1992 to join Liers in Wait, leaving Mikael as the main driving force. Jump forward three years and Opeth has dramatically transformed. Anyone that’s experienced Opeth’s music will know that this goal was never reached, but it’s safe to say that the aim was soon adjusted to a far less sinister, yet no less ambitious target. Not only did they decide to continue on alone, they committed to making Opeth the most evil band in the world. Unsurprisingly, this caused a huge argument which resulted in mass revolt, with only Isberg and Mikael remaining by the end of the day. When he arrived for practice, it became clear that none of the other members of the band knew that Isberg had invited him to join, including the current bassist who also turned up. Unfortunately for Mikael, his first day with Opeth did not go particularly smoothly. Who knows what inspired him to use the name for his death metal band, nor why he added an “h” onto the end, but that’s what he did. In the book, Opet is the name given to a fictional Phoenician city which is also known as the City of the Moon. The band name was chosen by Isberg and was derived from the word Opet, which originated in a Wilbur Smith novel called The Sunbird. Mikael had previously seen the Opeth logo (the original one complete with inverted cross that can be found here) and liked it, so he accepted the offer. After the split, David Isberg asked Mikael to join his band, a death metal band called Opeth. Eruption disbanded in 1990 without ever performing live or releasing anything to the public, but the experience would unquestionably help Mikael and Anders have more success in future endeavours. Initially the two of them played death and thrash metal covers by bands such as Death and Bathory, before putting together a full line-up and writing their own material. The seeds of Opeth were sewn when long time friends Mikael Åkerfeldt and Anders Nordin formed a band called Eruption in 1987. Whether Opeth should be at all associated with death metal these days is a constant argument that fills pages of forums and Rate Your Music genre queue discussions, but there can be absolutely no doubt that the band’s origins can directly be linked back to death metal. ![]() Releasing a consistent flow of outstanding albums, the band have built up a huge drooling fan base, garnered immense critical praise, and done so while completely avoiding straightforward genre classifications. Love them or hate them, Opeth are one of the most successful bands in the history of metal music. Still, one has to admire Opeth's unwavering adherence to the album's astoundingly depressive tone, Orchid being a near-brilliant ode to misery that would kick the door down for Akerfeldt and his cohorts to claim sole ownership of a well-conceived and, at the time, startlingly unique sound.Opeth's debut is a wonderful tapestry of differing moods and textures. Mastermind Mikael Akerfeldt's guttural growls puncture the nearly interminable arrangements with the kind of brutality that stops die-hard death and black metal fans from giving up on the lengthy arrangements completely, although with five exorbitant cuts clocking in at ten-plus minutes (three of them over 13 minutes), some fat-trimming would have kept things even remotely manageable. And while the record finds the group searching for the razor-sharp focus and prominent emotional hook put forth on the later, classic releases My Arms, Your Hearse, Still Life, and Blackwater Park, Orchid is still an exhilarating listen, with the band meshing double-time death tempos with bleak, frostbitten riffs and moodily expansive, jazz-influenced, melodic instrumental passages sporting an abundance of delicate acoustic guitars and pianos. Fact is, these Swedes - with the opening cut, "In Mist She Was Standing," exceeding the 14-minute mark - laid their cards on the table at the beginning of the hand and still took the pot, so ambitious and convincing is the band's artistic vision. Opeth's debut, Orchid, was quite an audacious release, a far-beyond-epic prog/death monstrosity exuding equal parts beauty and brutality - an album so brilliant, so navel-gazingly pretentious that, in retrospect, Opeth's future greatness was a foregone conclusion.
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