Mikael talks about GR with Terrorizer

Midwinter_melancholY

Midwinter_melancholY

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Nov 30, 2002
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OPETH Mainman MIKAEL ÅKERFELDT: 'The New Album Never, Ever Gets Boring' - June 8, 2005, Blabbermouth.net

OPETH mainman Mikael Åkerfeldt recently spoke to U.K.'s Terrorizer magazine about the group's upcoming album, "Ghost Reveries", tentatively due on August 30 via Roadrunner Records. A few excerpts from the interview follow:

Terrorizer: Still working on the album?

Mikael: "We still have the cover to do and the booklet and photos and all sorts of things."

Terrorizer: But the album's almost completed?

Mikael: "You could probably say so. We've done the mixes for five heavy, long tracks, but we still have the mixes for three or four extra songs left to do. Everything's recorded. It's just that KATATONIA went into the studio directly after us, so we have to wait like a week or something to do the mixes for those last songs."

Terrorizer: Is there perhaps a certain organic quality which has been worked into the songs because of you having rehearsed for this album?

Mikael: "Yeah. It'd like to hope so, at least. I worked more with each song and each passage, so I feel the songs 100 per cent. They're much more well-structured this time around."

Terrorizer: There was a certain flow that you seemed to lose on some of the songs on "Deliverance". "Damnation" seemed to breathe properly, where "Deliverance" generally didn't.

Mikael: "I have to agree, because I think at the time we were recording I was so stressed that it was going to be an album at all; and since we were doing two albums, I think my heart was in the project of doing 'Damnation', because that was the odd thing. While I'm happy with 'Deliverance' overall, I think 'Damnation' is one of our best albums ever. 'Deliverance' is not our strongest album, but I think the song 'Deliverance' is one of our best songs. So I'm not slagging the album off, it's just the memory of the whole recording is so bad, and I know how I was functioning when I was doing those songs. I was under a lot of pressure and I just wanted it to be done. This time around I paid much more attention to the small details and put much more energy into making the songs like, full-on all the time, if you know what I mean. The new album never, ever gets boring. People should never think that OPETH are boring — and we were kind of treading that line on 'Deliverance', I guess."

Terrorizer: So are the lyrical themes of this new record moving into new and different territory too?

Mikael: "The lyrics are almost a regression, I think. I've gone back to the early influences of the band. I wanted to write like an occult kind of concept story. I didn't want to write a stupid Satanic lyric and it's not a Satanic album or anything, but I started with this idea of a concept, and that was like a red thread, if you know what I mean, throughout the story: that there is some occult undertone in it. The lyrics are almost like a cliché for death metal, but written how I write, so it's not just stupid. It's some good stories, I think. It's much more sinister than before: I haven't written lyrics like this in fifteen years. I hope they're better now than they were fifteen years ago!"
Click to expand...

joepie!
 
"People should never think that OPETH are boring — and we were kind of treading that line on 'Deliverance', I guess."

:lol: ahaha, shit, I should tone it down with the Deliverance bashing - I forget that Mike reads the forum. But I think it's really really cool that he can acknowledge all that about Deliverance. It just gives me more hope regarding the new release.
 
Ook hier joepie :)

I don't get it, Mike says he feels the songs for 100%, but he doesn't now how much songs he'll mix next week?? Is he still structuring the songs with already recorded riffs? Or will they let some songs out of the album?
 
KEIGAAF MAN!!!

i think it's very rare when a band frontman speaks kinda bad about his latest release :) gives me good hopes for the new album :)
 
I drove past John Safran in Sydney a while back. My mate yelled out the window "Hey love the show, get another one coming!"
He turned around and said something but it was lost in a spray of saliva.
 
Somehow I won't believe any single word from all this interviews lately. I even doubt that they are real at all.

Plus, the quote "the new album never ever gets boring" is just plain stupid.
 
While the interview sounds like good news, one of the things that stood out for me was the "Katatonia going into the studio" :p

Of course, being as how the only Katatonia I've really liked (a lot, at least) is probably Dance of December Souls going up until Tonight's Decision (one of my favorites) -- I'd like to see a visit back to "December" but, unfortunately I don't think it will happen :(
 
The fact that Mike is saying that they took their time with the little details is really good news in my mind, it's almost like a send-back to the MAYH and SL era where this sort of attention to detail existed and why their best material was written during that time.

Actually on that note, I wouldn't mind Epilogue #2 :). Per on rock organ and the guys just soloing away... maybe give Per a few saw lead solos in true progressive rock style.
 
Err, I can't stand this anticipation. The things I've read sound so great and I think and hope that it will be one of the best Opeth albums. The thing that I look most forward to is hearing what kind of new vibe will Per add to Opeth's sound.
 
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