Opeth performed the track Coil from Watershed on Swedish TV with Nathalie Lorichs as guest vocalist. Nathalie is the girlfriend of Opeth’s drummer Martin Axenrot. The performance was aired on Nyhetsmorgon show on Swedish TV4.

Just a reminder that I am running two contests right now. One for a signed/used guitar picked from Opeth’s Fredrik Akesson, and the other for a copy of All That Remains soon to go gold album, Overcome. Click on the links below and enter the contest.

Win A Signed Guitar PIck From Opeth’s Fredrick Akesson

Enter to Win All That Remains Overcome

Image Sources: (guitar pick Metalmartyr.com) Album image from Amazon.com

Check out Opeth’s new video for Burden off of the Watershed album. I love this song. Mikael’s voice is amazing. I love the heavier stuff but I wouldn’t mind an entire album that sounded like this.

Metalsucks.net writer Vince Neilstein had a chance to interview Opeth front man Mikael Åkerfeldt and guitarist Fredrik Åkesson about a month ago in NYC when they were on tour with High On Fire and Nachtmystium who were recently booted from the tour. They talked about Metallica’s Death Magnetic and touring again. I’ll be interviewing Fredrik Åkesson this Friday in Raleigh, NC and hopefully I’ll get some good shots of the show as well. Here is a few bits and pieces from the interview:

How’s the chemistry with the other bands? You guys have probably toured with High on Fire before but maybe not Nachtmystium?

MA: No, we’ve never toured with them. We never met those guys, so we’re just getting acquainted with them. They seem like nice people, but we haven’t hung out that much yet. We’ll have time because this tour goes all the way through October, but not with Nachtmystium; they’re leaving in the middle of the tour.

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Mourning edition? Yeah, I don’t know. It looked a lot cooler when I typed it up like that. Anyway, I took a day off from work so I’m going to be doing some updates throughout the day with some and I there is a lot of news to cover so instead of stretching it out I thought I would lump most of it in one shot and work on some reviews in between as well as work on some stuff over at The Rock Dose. That page needs some traffic badly so I have to take a little attention away from Metal Martyr for a bit. Let’s get started.

Antimusic reported that Sharon Osbourne said in an interview that Ozfest will return next year as it did in the past and she wants AC/DC to open. That will be interesting…how the hell does she plan on paying for that gig. AC/DC aren’t exactly cheap act to book, I don’t care how old they are. You can read Antimusic’s take on it here

There is more rumors of a Slayer retirement. We heard this awhile back, but this time it sounds much more inevitable. in This Interview at Thrashhits.com, Tommy Araya says “Yeah. Let’s put it this way, this is the final record of our commitment with Rick Rubin.” But that leaves an open end. Does this mean the last Slayer record or just the last one with Rick Ruben? Maybe they will try different ventures.

Id there a Metallica track listing for Death Magnetic? It appears so and there is actually going to be an Unforgiven III. But now it’s kind of up in the air or maybe someone leaked some shit they were not supposed to. Blabbermouth first reported this and not it looks as if the source site has taken down the announcement…WTF?

Kataklysm recently announced a North American Tour. I can only hope they play in some venue near me but I can’t get my hopes up. If you haven’t heard the entire Prevail album, buy it, borrow it burn it, whatever…it’s brutal, it rips, it kills…ok, can’t think of any other metal sounding expressions to describe this album…oh wait…IT SLAYS!!

Want to win Opeth’s Watershed? I hope you Unreadable band logo skills are up to par. Metalsucks.net has a weekly contest called “Completely Unreadable Band Logo Of The Week“. If you can guess the band who’s logo looks so ridiculously stupid that you can not even read it, then you could win a cd. Click here to check it out.

A week or two ago I bought a Metal Edge Magazine and most of it was garbage as usual. However it came with a cd sampler that had Bloodbath’s Weak Aside on it along with 2 other songs that are pretty good and 5 more that suck royally. The cd sparked an interest in Bloodbath which also sparked my interest Opeth. I bought Watershed the other day and I was kind of surprised at how much acoustic music was on it. I still wanted more of the heavy Opeth type stuff so instead I bought Bloodbath’s Unblessing The Purity EP on iTunes and also Resurrection Through Carnage. Both are amazing pieces of metal. If you get a chance check out the EP Unblessing The Purity and I’m really looking forward to The Fathomless Mastery.

You can order Unblessing The Purity at Peaceville.com, but it’s a lot easier and might even be cheaper on iTunes.

I finally broke down and bought Opeth’s Watershed yesterday. I was tired of looking at it every time I was at the record store and went in yesterday and it wasn’t on their dinky little wall. I found it with the rest of the non-new releases and there was 3 other Opeth CDs there. I don’t know jack about Opeth except for a couple songs here and there, but the way I always hear people talk about them I figured it was a good buy.

It wasn’t what I expected. 75% of it is acoustic and soft singing. While it’s kind of soothing, I was expecting a lot more of the heavier stuff on the album. I like it, but I just wanted more of the heavy. Perhaps I can look forward to the new Bloodbath.

So my question is to all the people out there that have been Opeth fans for awhile…are all the other Opeth albums like this?

I’m not a big Opeth fan. I don’t have any of their cds but I dig the Porcelain  Heart Video and I like the cover of Celtic Frost’s Circle Of Tyrants from the In Memory Of Celtic Frost tribute. But to be honest I’m in no rush to go scoop up Watershed anytime soon. With that said Kip Wingerschmidt did a review of Watershed over at MetalSucks. Here is a very brief excerpt from the review.

I wish I could say that Opeth is still carving new territory in the symphonic progressive death metal arena, but truth be splooged, they — or more accurately, Åkerfeldt & Co., are starting to sound like a watered-down version of the band’s former self. Which, as any old-school Opeth fan might suspect, is still mostly awesome. 

Read the rest of the review here: ON NEW ALBUM WATERSHED, OPETH KEEPS IT SIMPLE, ALBEIT BRUTAL, AND BANDLEADER MIKAEL ÅKERFELDT PRESENTS US WITH SOME OF THE CHEESIEST LYRICS SINCE JOURNEY

Opeth released Watershed yesterday on RoadRunner Records

Image Sources: Opeth Watershed CD From Amazon.Com. MetalSucks Banner from Metalsuck.net

Roadrun.com’s Myspace Repost:

The wait is finally over.

Go to the following link to pre-order any configuration of Opeth’s Watershed:

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/getopeth/

The first 750 pre-orders get an autographed booklet for any configuration and the first 300 orders of the Vinyl/Collectors edition bundle get the exclusive track “Mellotron Heart” on CD.

Reserve your copy of Opeth’s haunting epic masterpiece before it hits stores.

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