OPETH: Sorceress (2016)

  Starting this piece I should mention that I never cared much for Opeth. Their older albums are simply annoying to my ears. But when their leader Mikael Akkerfeldt started hanging around with Steven Wilson, something started to change. There has been a huge turn in their music, starting with the album Damnation (2003). Every new release of theirs shows that a major change in their music and style is in progress, so we still don’t know where it is going to lead them.

  I got only 3 albums of Opeth in my collection; Damnation (2003), Heritage (2011) and this new one which was a present from a friend in the vinyl edition. (Thank you Dimitris).

I consider Damnation as an important and good album, and the same stands for Heritage. But I must admit that Sorceress caught me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting it to be that good!

  You can buy the album in the double (picture disc) vinyl edition, which is including 11 songs in total. The CD version is also double, including 16 tracks. The second CD is kind of a bonus one, including 2 extra studio songs and 3 live ones.

  The album’s opening track is the folky Persephone, a beautiful and melodic tune, followed by the rather powerful Sorceress. Next comes The Wilde Flower, another strong tune that is reminding me of something, but I can’t figure out what. Will O the Wisp is a cool and melodic tune, followed by Chrysalis, maybe the most powerful song of the whole album.

Sorceress 2 is a very slow tune that in some parts is reminding me of Pink Floyd. Then comes the best song on the album in my opinion, but it seems like it was taken out of another band’s album, probably Myrath’s. The Seventh Sojourn is an Anatolian-influenced hypnotizing tune, which caught my attention from the first spin. Strange Brew (nothing to do with the same titled song recorded by Cream), is a total Prog tune, which I don’t really like to be honest. I rather prefer - the also Proggy - A Fleeting Glance that follows. Era is another powerful Prog song, which is not adding something new to the album, without being a bad song. Persephone (slight return) is closing the album, and it is a low tempo melancholic short tune.

  In a few words, Sorceress is a good album, including some fine moments, some nice tunes and a couple of powerful Prog songs. I don’t know how the Opeth fans will react to this release, but I’m perfectly pleased with it.

Favorite songs (so far): The Seventh Sojourn, Chrysalis, Persephone, Sorceress. 

 My rating would be between 3.00 and 3.5 out of 5.0 stars.