OPETH Morningrise RSD (2LP) Vinyl

Before Opeth went full prog and divided the internet, there was Morningrise, forty-five minutes of Swedish death metal so sprawling and genuinely strange that it still sounds like nothing else from 1996.

The second album, recorded at Unisound Studio with Dan Swanö producing, is where Mikael Åkerfeldt's dual-vocal approach, clean and savage in the same breath, stopped being a curiosity and became a signature. Tracks like Black Rose Immortal clock in at over twenty minutes without ever feeling like they're padding. This is the dark aesthetic of progressive metal at its most uncompromising, the kind of record that serious listeners return to for decades. The RSD double LP reissue gives it the space it deserves across two sides of heavy-weight vinyl, which is the only format that can really hold something this dense.

2LP vinyl. Record Store Day reissue of the 1996 Opeth album. Swedish progressive death metal.

Fans of: Katatonia, My Dying Bride, Amorphis, Edge of Sanity, Porcupine Tree