“Drag Ropes”, the first official video from STORM CORROSION, the long-discussed and highly anticipated collaboration between two of the modern progressive rock scene’s most innovative and multi-talented artists — Mikael Åkerfeldt of OPETH and PORCUPINE TREE’s Steven Wilson

Swedish progressive metal stalwarts Opeth’s 10th album Heritage — which follows 2008’s Watershed and 2005’s Ghost Reveries - is their strangest, most genre-melding to date. For starters it includes guest spots from Swedish flautist/composer Björn J:son Lindh and Weather Report percussionist Alex Acuna. As you may have guessed, it also includes 100% clean singing. Main man Mikael Akerfeldt refers to Opeth records as “observations.” Of this one he notes, “[I]t feels like I’ve been building up to write for and participate on an album like this since I was 19.” Fittingly, he says he listened to a bunch of Alice Cooper over the past year. There’s also something youthful about the exuberant blend of jazz upswings, “God is dead” lyrics, and stop-on-a-dime tempo shifts in lead single “The Devil’s Orchard.” On the album it follows the two-minute scene-setting opening piano piece “Heritage,” a song Akerfelt says was inspired by Swedish jazz pianist Jan Johansson and Swedish folk music. That in mind, take a listen to Heritage‘s first explosive moment…

OPETH: ‘Heritage’ Album Details Revealed

Swedish progressive metallers OPETH will release their tenth album, “Heritage”, on September 20 via Roadrunner Records. The CD was produced by OPETH vocalist/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt and was recorded earlier this year at Atlantis studios (formerly Metronome studios) in Stockholm. Mixing duties were handled by Steven Wilson (PORCUPINE TREE) and Åkerfeldt. Longtime collaborator Travis Smith also worked with Åkerfeldt to create, design and execute the album’s artwork.

“Heritage” will be released in several configurations that will certainly incite the interest of OPETH’s legion of fans, known for their passion for collecting and collectibles. The album will be released as a standard version; as a special edition loaded with extras; as a box set exclusive to the Roadrunner and the band’s own official Omerch webstore; and as a double LP. There is something for every OPETH fan, thanks to this variety of options.

Commented Åkerfeldt, “It will be our 10th album/observation. I dig it; we all do. In fact, it feels like I’ve been building up to write for and participate on an album like this since I was 19.”

Åkerfeldt went a little deeper and described the music contained within “Heritage”, saying, “It’s quite intense at times in some ‘old’ murky way, and quite beautiful and stark at times, if I may say so myself.

“It’s obvious I’m going to say nice things about it since I wrote, basically, the whole piece, but I guess it will raise a few eyebrows and it certainly is an acquired taste.

“I think you’ll need a slightly deeper understanding of our music as a whole to be able to appreciate this record.

“I’ve realized my influences for this album are so diverse that I can’t really say what it sounds like.

“If I can compare it to any other band, it would have to be OPETH, but it’s different from the stuff we’ve done before.

“I’ve listened a lot to ALICE COOPER for the last year, yet I can’t say it sounds like ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’.

“I hope you’ll like it once you hear it.”

“Heritage” track listing:

01. Heritage
02. The Devil’s Orchard
03. I Feel The Dark
04. Slither
05. Nepenthe
06. Haxprocess
07. Famine
08. The Lines In My Hand
09. Folklore
10. Marrow Of The Earth

OPETH will embark on a seven-week, headline tour of the U.S. Dates will be announced imminently.

OPETH’s last album, “Watershed” (2008), sold more than 19,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 23 on The Billboard 200 chart. Its predecessor, “Ghost Reveries”, debuted at No. 64 on the Billboard chart back in September 2005 with first-week sales of just under 15,000. OPETH’s 2003 album, “Damnation”, opened with a little over 5,000 copies.

Keyboardist Per Wiberg was relieved of his duties as a member of OPETH last month as part of a mutual decision with the band. Keyboard duties on upcoming tours will be handled by a musician who is already rehearsing with the group. Said musician’s identity will be released at a later date.

Åkerfeldt released the following statement on the matter: “Well, it’s been somewhat of a revolving door of members during the last couple of years, and now Per is no longer a member. [Martin] Mendez [bass], Axe [Martin Axenrot, drums] and Fredrik [Åkesson, guitar] and I came to the decision that we should find a replacement for Per right after the recordings of the new album, and this came as no surprise to Per. He had, in turn, been thinking about leaving, so you could say it was a mutual decision. There’s no bad blood, just a relationship that came to an end, and that’s that. We wish Per the best, and he did a splendid job recording keyboards for the last record, which stands as his final recording with OPETH.”

As part of the celebration of their 20th anniversary, OPETH released live footage and audio from the band’s performance at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall. The concert (recorded on April 5, 2010) included two sets, the first consisting of the band performing 2000’s now-classic, breakthrough epic “Blackwater Park” in its entirety, and the second, a chronologically arranged selection of material from the rest of OPETH’s extensive catalogue, totaling almost three hours of music. “In Live Concert At The Royal Albert Hall” is, like the rest of OPETH’s greatest work, “purposefully warped in all the right places” (Decibel). The front cover artwork concept pays tribute to DEEP PURPLE’s “Concerto for Group and Orchestra”, underlining the band’s longstanding love for their prog-rock roots.

STEVEN WILSON on Project with MIKAEL AKERFELDT: We Didn’t Wanna Do a Prog-Metal Supergroup

PORCUPINE TREE’s Steven Wilson recently spoke to the U.K. branch of Roadrunner Records about his much-anticipated collaboration project with OPETH’s Mikael Akerfeldt, tentatively dubbed “Storm Corrosion”. You can now watch the chat below.

On how the songwriting sessions for “Storm Corrosion” are progressing:

Wilson: “In March we started [working on the material for it]. It’s sporadic, because we get together once every three months. [Mikael] comes over to my studio and we work for a few days and we get really drunk on red wine, go buy and loads of records and then come back, and if we’re lucky, do, like, ten minutes work. But the incredible thing was that although, comparatively, we haven’t worked that long, what we produced we were so happy with, and we are so happy with. It’s nice to know that what we always suspected was that when we actually got together, it was gonna be quite easy. It was also in the back of your mind, thinking, ‘Maybe it won’t work.’ Maybe it [was] just built up so much [in my head before we started writing songs], and it was so easy. So easy. And the music was so crazy and so inspiring to both of us. So I think that was good to feel, like, ‘It’s gonna work.’ So we have about, I’d say, 25 minutes of music [written] so far. We’re getting together again in November to do another piece or two. Drink some more wine, buy some more records… So that’s kind of a work in progress, and I don’t know when that will come out. Then it would be great to do some shows around that, too, but he’s [Mikael] gonna be back with OPETH next year at some point, so it may not be feasible. But certainly the record [should be ready to be recorded and released by then].”

On the similarities and differences between PORCUPINE TREE and OPETH and how they play into the new project:

Wilson: “The funny thing is that the music we’re making together is actually nothing like either of us made before. Because I think we both had this idea of this kind of music that we knew we couldn’t get our bands to play, but that we both kind of understood where we were coming from. ‘Cause we have this kind of passion [for] very experimental, obscure records, almost orchestral in their scope. And we wanted to make a record like that for a long time. It’s a long way from metal and it’s a long way from anything that, I think, Mikael has ever done, including the ‘Damnation’ record [from OPETH]. I think a lot of people thought, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be like ‘Damnation’.’ It’s not; it’s a long way from that, too. And it’s actually a long way from anything I’ve done; [it’s] possibly closer to aspects of things I’ve done, but really quite distinct from anything I’ve ever [released]. [It’s] very orchestral, lots of strings, lots of guitars and vocals, too. Lots of very long songs that kind of go in different directions that you don’t necessarily expect them to go in — almost theatrical in a way. And we both kind of admitted to ourselves that there are a lot of fans out there that are probably gonna hate it. But we’re doing it for us. The one thing we didn’t wanna do is get together and do a prog-metal supergroup, which would have been so easy to do — and kind of expected, in a way. And, you know, we might do that anyway one day. But this time around, we thought, ‘Let’s just do this [kind of] record.’ Some people will love it and some people will not, and that’s OK, because, in a way, I don’t think we wanted to just give what was expected, and we’re certainly not doing that.”

On whether Steven and Mikael are self-producing the new project:

Wilson: “Right now, we kind of fall into my studio at midnight and work through the night and just… It’s great, because in many respects, Mikael is the closest I know to someone who is… How do I put this? He’s the equivalent of me in his band. He’s like the captain of the ship and we kind of understand each other — all the frustrations of being in that position, all the stresses and pressures of being in that situation — so because of that, there’s no ego thing at all — yet! [Laughs] But we’re both kind of control freaks, in a way, so that’s kind of a strange situation to be, where you’re working with someone where you don’t feel any of those issues and you have that complete trust. So we’re just like… [I go], ‘Here, you have the guitar. Do something amazing.’ And he does. And then I’m like, ‘Oh, I’ve got an idea for that,’ and I do some keyboard thing. And he’s like, ‘That’s amazing! I love that.’ And so it’s really… It sounds like we’re kind of blowing each other the whole time… [Laughs] But it’s just so much fun. And that’s the important thing — I think it’s fun. Because there’s no ego and there’s no pressure. Because people don’t know what to expect. And we’ve kind of already resigned ourselves to the fact that we’re gonna do something that people are gonna hate, anyway. I mean, I’m exaggerating… I’m sure a lot of people are gonna dig it. But people are gonna be surprised by it. We’re not giving people what they expect, so there’s little pressure, really — there’s very little pressure. It’s just literally swapping instruments and I’m kind of recording it on my own system.”

In a recent interview with U.K.’s Classic Rock, Akerfeldt stated about the writing process for the “Storm Corrosion” CD, “I got together recently with Steven at his house, and we wrote a new tune straight away. Of course, with the two of us involved, it was 10 minutes long. And it came out so well that we started working on a second one as well.”

Although DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy was initially supposed to be part of the project, it now appears that he will no longer be involved.

“To be honest, there’s just no room for drums on what we’ve done so far,” Akerfeldt said. “I called Mike up, and he was cool about it. He’s got so much going on anyway, and I’m sure we will work together in the future.”

Project Featuring Mikael Akerfeldt, Mike Portnoy, and Steven Wilson Has Launched!

Infusing all shades of rock into a “twisted” and “experimental” musical incarnation is a long-anticipated and newly embarked project – to feature Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson, Opeth’s Mikael Akerfeldt, as well as Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy. In a recent interview with Chordstruck Magazine, Wilson explained how the project is still “in [its] very early days,” as he is currently getting the concepts out and onto the paper, drafting the first few tunes with Akerfeldt. Thus far, both European progressive metal masterminds have churned out “15 minutes of music” in Wilson’s London studio.

Now, Akerfeldt, Wilson, and Portnoy – are dudes that keep themselves busy, dabbling in dissection with all types of music – exemplified by and ranging from the traditional death metal calls of Bloodbath’s Resurrection Through Carnage, through to the progressive, experimental tunes of records like Dream Theater’s When Dream and Day Unite, and Opeth’s My Arms, Your Hearse. Nonetheless, zooming in on the present and collaborative effort at hand, Portnoy added that, in spite of their more traceably progressive metal backgrounds, “people are going to be very surprised by the direction” – especially those who may spin the record with expectations of the “death-metal-progressive rock” feel. He assured readers of this, so too that “if you put the two of [both Wilson and Akerfeldt] together,” the “last thing [they’d] do is something similar to what people already known from our most high-profile project.” In short, they itch to innovate, forever avoiding that easier but all-too common path of writing music that is predictable, familiar, and perhaps more welcomed by their established fanbases.

Despite the fact that the duo (and soon to be, trio) intends to venture into the more “mellower” and less “prog” sonic realms, they have promised that their direction is “arty…ambitious,” and inevitably, “epic” – undoubtedly “dark” – a sure-fire way to hook listeners on the deliberate melodies and the introspective lyrics that gave both musicians a solid status in the musical world. They have walked into the studio’s with the intent of doing “something really, really special and really different” – a desire that they have kept in mind for years. Added Portnoy in a 2009 interview with Pyromusic.net, “the three of us each mentioned wanting to work with each other years ago, and since then it’s kind of been this rumor that won’t go away.” Rumor-turned reality? Not quite, as he also explained how the exponential “hype and anticipation” has ironically made them “hesitant” to go forward with the project. Perfectionists as they are, it’s due to the overwhelming reception from a record that has barely been drafted, to-date, that they feel the hype has “surpassed anything [they can] realistically deliver.”

As opposed to a more silent and understated entry of new music into the libraries and flowing from the headphones of music listeners, Portnoy attributed the excitement to the Internet, on which news and music getting “leaked” is an increasingly common phenomenon: often a source of bliss for beloved yet impatient fans, and a royal nuisance for bands (and their loving labels). He vehemently critiqued such “leaks” and the internet for too often “[opening] up [a] can of worms of discussion,” after which “people starting discussing and discussing and discussing and dissecting and anticipating…[building] up such a level of hype and expectation in their head that it’s impossible to ever satisfy.”

As far as expectations are concerned, Portnoy and Wilson wish to keep the project’s growth “under the lid,” but have promised that they “would love to work together” and get it all together, synthesizing a record that’s “different” as anything they’ve ever made but essentially, and perhaps most crucially, straight rockin.’