Photo credit: Mehreen Rizvi
According to Consequence Sound, the Swedish band Opeth have teamed up with Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson in new track “§4.” The track is included in Opeth’s newly released album, The Last Will and Testament, which was originally supposed to be released on October 11th, but was delayed until November 22nd. The concept album is Opeth’s fourteenth studio album and is set in the post World- War 1 era.
Anderson adds flute playing along with spoken words in this seven-minute track. Opeth’s frontman, Mikael Åkerfeldt, said in a press release, “‘§4’ is an oddball song, just written by instinct. I’m not a clever guy when it comes to writing music. People call us ‘thinking man’s metal,’ I think that’s laughable. I listen to music from so many different genres, it’s impossible to me to stick to one genre.”
Mikael Åkerfeldt continued to talk about how Anderson’s flute solo was not anticipated, “As he was doing the spoken word bits, he asked me ‘do you need a flute solo?’ I was like, ‘yes, please!‘, while I didn’t really have a part for a flute solo!”
The lyric video for the track stays on theme with the post World- War 1 era as it flashes black and white images throughout it. The pictures glide through a spectrum of graveyards, homes, statues and people that all match to the gothic vibe shone in the track.
The track itself bounces between different genres of music that all center around the apoclopytic post World- War 1 era. Rock, metal and instrumental solos are prevalent throughout the song. Though it seems that the mix in genres would clash, Opeth gracefully merges the genres proving their talent.
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