OPETH In Cauda Venenum Vinyl (2019) 2LP

By 2019, Opeth had spent a decade watching half their fanbase lose their minds over the progressive turn, and their response was to record an entire album in Swedish and release it in two languages simultaneously.

In Cauda Venenum, which translates loosely to the sting is in the tail, is Mikael Åkerfeldt and company at their most deliberate. The Swedish version, which is what this pressing is, carries a different emotional weight to the English, something about singing in your mother tongue when you're writing about death, regret, and the slow collapse of certainty. It is not a metal record. It is barely a rock record in places. It is Opeth doing whatever they want with a full orchestra and zero apologies, and it is one of the more genuinely strange major-label progressive rock albums of the last decade. On vinyl it breathes in a way the digital files simply don't.

Double LP, standard black vinyl, Swedish language version. 180g pressing. Released 2019 on Nuclear Blast.

Fans of: Anathema, Katatonia, Devin Townsend, Amorphis, Soen, Porcupine Tree