“It’s so much focus on the screams” – Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth shares his feelings on the vocals of the upcoming album

Opeth guitarist and vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt talked about the band’s upcoming album, “The Last Will And Testament,” which will be released on October 11 via Reigning Phoenix Music/Moderbolaget, in a recent interview with “Coffee With Ola,” a YouTube program hosted by Ola Englund, the Swedish guitarist, record producer, and owner of Solar guitars. In response, Åkerfeldt made the following remark regarding the fantastic reception received by Opeth fans for the newly released first single from the album, “§1,” which features Mikael’s growling vocals.

I don’t have social media. Obviously, the record is not out yet, so I haven’t read any reviews, but I’m on YouTube, believe it or not, every now and then, so I’ve seen some comments and videos, ‘Oh, my god, Opeth is back. Mikael’s back,’ that type of thing. And yeah, there are some screams on there. And it’s cool that they appreciate it. It’s also slightly annoying. I choose not to get upset. I’m an old guy. I decided I’m just gonna take in, like, ‘You love it? You love that I do that stuff? Fine. I’m gonna be happy about it. But it’s also, is that all we are? We’ve done four records in a row without that type of vocals, which people have liked, but it’s been… It’s so much focus on the screams, I almost feel like I wanna troll, just do a shit record, like really shit, obvious shit, with great screams and see what they think. But I’m really happy with the record. The screams sound really good. They fit this music and the concept of the record. So, all in all, I’m happy.

In any case, there are significantly more growling vocals on the upcoming record than on the previous ones.

Yeah, maybe it’s 50-50, maybe more. But it was fun doing it again. I hadn’t done it on an Opeth record for quite some time. ‘Watershed’ was the last [album] with that type of vocals. I wrote the songs. I started with the one called ‘Paragraph One’ [‘§1’]. So I tried some screams to see if it fit with the music, because I hadn’t written music with the intention of having that type of vocal for a long time. So I didn’t know if it was gonna work, but it sounded great to me. So I was, like, ‘Okay.’ Besides, it’s a concept record and it gave a voice to that main character in the story. So that felt, like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna try.’

He also shared about the concept of the album.

People heard that first song, ‘Paragraph One’. It starts with footsteps leading up to a door. A door opens and then off we go. And a patriarch, a father has died. He’s a rich, conservative, stern old fucker who’s passed away and the album starts when his children, his three children, arrive to attend the reading of his last will and testament, basically to see what they’re, so to speak, getting. And then throughout the album, through his testament, all the lyrics are written as if they were written like a proper testament, with paragraphs, which explains the titles, or the lack of titles. And throughout the reading, he will reveal secrets about himself mostly, but many of these secrets will immediately affect his children and kind of turn their lives upside down. And then there’s a twist to the story as well in the end.