Orchid (1995)

Personnel:

Mikael Åkerfeldt: lead vocals, acoustic and electric guitars

Peter Lindgren: acoustic and electric guitars

Johan De Farfalla: backing vocals, acoustic and electric bass

Anders Nordin: drums, percussion, piano on 'Silhouette'

Additional Personnel:

Stefan Guteklint: bass on 'Into the Frost of Winter' (bonus track)

Torbjörn Ekebacke: artwork, photography

Pontus Norgren: co-production on 'Requiem'

Dan Swanö: engineer, mixing

Produced at Unisound Studio in Finspång, Sweden, March - April 1994 by Opeth and Dan Swanö.

Release date: 15 May 1995

Highest chart places: UK: none, USA: none

Running time: 65:26 (reissue 71:49)

Current edition: 2020 Candlelight Records / Spinefarm Records Record Store Day pink marble swirl 2 x vinyl with bonus track

While the departure of Isberg was unexpected and quick, it wasn't entirely upsetting for the rest of the band. As Åkerfeldt reflects: 'David had stopped showing up for rehearsals [before he quit] and I was starting to take it all more seriously; I was really becoming the leader of the band ... If I'm being honest, there was a sense of relief when he left'. Lindgren concurs, adding, 'At that time, David was a bit troublesome; he didn't make friends with people and didn't even try. On stage, he would insult people and we'd tell him we thought it was unnecessary'. They were even thinking of reforming under a new name and leaving Isberg to fend for himself. Fortunately, that never had to happen, and with Isberg out of the picture, they had free rein to give Opeth a fresh start.

For the next year or so, Åkerfeldt, Lindgren, and Nordin wrote and rehearsed about half a dozen times per week (and sometimes in complete darkness to help establish a sense of control and atmosphere). Along the way, they brought in bassist Stefan Guteklint - who didn't stay for long - and took promo photos to 'feel like a real band', as Lindgren puts it. Although they still looked to extreme metal for inspiration (not only musically but also in terms of work ethic and promotional tactics), Åkerfeldt knew that they wanted to 'be a heavy metal band that could really play', too. So, he started collecting second-hand vinyl records of progressive rock acts such as King Crimson, Camel, Van der Graaf Generator, Yes, Wishbone Ash, and even Dream Theater because their photos reminded him of classic rock and metal giants like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath. He 'loved the length of the songs, the moods, and movements' so much that he decided to incorporate those attributes into a revised Opeth formula that wittingly strayed from the typical and ubiquitous Swedish death metal sound.

Boldly, they decided against recording a demo, choosing instead to try and get a record deal from the rehearsal tape that they'd be handing out wherever they could. Luckily, a few notable people - Jonas Renkse of Katatonia, Samoth of Emperor, and Candlelight Records founder Lee Barrett - heard it and agreed. (Of course, this also led to Åkerfeldt and Renkse becoming great friends.) Specifically, Barrett heard a snippet of 'The Apostle in Triumph' on a tape of miscellaneous unsigned black metal bands and decided to pursue signing them. Shortly thereafter, Åkerfeldt received a letter from Barrett saying that he wanted to put out an EP. Just as he finished reading it - feeling excited but also disappointed at not getting offered an LP - Barrett called and said to ignore the letter because he wanted to do a full album.

At first, Åkerfeldt thought that this would lead to him living the ideal rock star life; but, after taking the contract to a lawyer, he realised that 'the trips to Malibu' may not come very often. Nevertheless, they were happy to finally see their hard work pay off and get the chance to show the world what they could do. As is often the case, though, that meant reassessing the line-up once more and deciding the Guteklint needed to be replaced. Happily, former bassist Johan De Farfalla - who'd played one show with Opeth before leaving to spend more time with his girlfriend - accepted the role of session musician. With the quartet of Åkerfeldt, Lindgren, Nordin, and De Farfalla now in place, it was time to create what would become Orchid.

Because they'd had roughly three years to perfect the songs - and already wrote all the material except for 'In Mist She Was Standing' - they entered Unisound Studio (located 'in the cellar of a small house, right in the middle of a field') well prepared to nail the official versions. In fact, they booked two weeks of sessions but needed only twelve days to get it all done. Åkerfeldt admits: 'I was a bit underwhelmed when we arrived ... as I'd imagined it would have had recording booths and all of the other elements I thought a professional studio would have - but it was a cellar with a 16-track and cheap console with a quarter-inch tape machine'. Even so, they found working with Swanö easy and exciting, if also a bit anxiety-inducing, and they were even able to record much of it live and simultaneously. Having just turned twenty years old, Åkerfeldt encouraged substantial partying as well, and since they were staying at 'a little flat' near the studio, it didn't really impact their productivity.

Lyrically, the LP establishes Åkerfeldt's then-interest in the occult - albeit 'in no serious manner', he clarifies - but he concedes that the focus was more on the music than the words. As for the cover, he'd been following photographer Torbjörn Ekebacke for a while and thought that a simple but evocative image would work. The first pressing didn't feature their quintessential logo, though, and 'the lyric pages were totally the opposite' of what they wanted. The photographs on the back were taken at Åkerfeldt's 'childhood place' in Sörskogen during an especially lovely sunset; while there were 'several cool shots', the silhouette ones were picked as the best.

Unfortunately, Orchid wasn't the ground-breaking success that they'd hoped for. For one thing, and as Åkerfeldt explains, Isberg's 'influence' and 'some bad shows' resulted in Opeth having a 'bad reputation' in Stockholm. In addition, it took more than a year for Candlelight Records to put it out, and once they did, they didn't do enough (in the band's eyes) to promote it or get them many touring opportunities. Yet, there was at least some positive feedback in a handful of fanzines, and according Åkerfeldt, some of the other artists who worked with Swanö and heard the LP were 'blown away' to the point of 'hav[ing] band meetings to rethink what they were going to do'.

Since its release, Orchid has been praised as a seminal collection not only for Opeth, but for the larger scope of progressive death metal overall. John Serba of AllMusic called it 'a far-beyond-epic prog/death monstrosity exuding equal parts beauty and brutality', whereas Decibel magazine's Chris Dick said that the album 'changed death metal forever'. Looking back, Åkerfeldt confesses that although some of it makes him 'cringe' now, he finds to be a 'genuine', direct, 'pretentious', and 'energetic' image of who they were at the time. 'Essentially, it sounds like one of our rehearsals but with much better sound ... I don't have a solitary regret about it and am really proud of [it]', he notes.

To say that Orchid is the worst Opeth album is both true and misleading, as it implies that it's also a bad album. Far from it, the record is immensely go-getting and wide-ranging, continually infusing its black/death metal core with healthy doses of folk, jazz, classical, and prog rock accentuations. Those features, coupled with Åkerfeldt's rudimentary yet striking ability to play dual roles as devilish and angelic denouncers, means that Orchid contains everything that'd come to define Opeth as an outstanding creative force. It's just that they'd already advanced so much by the time it arrived, which is why they were able to follow it with the significantly superior Morningrise a mere thirteen months later.

'In Mist She Was Standing' (Åkerfeldt, Lindgren)

Reportedly, it's about a nightmare and was inspired by Erich Engels' 1951 crime film, The Lady in Black. It's both the last song completed for Orchid and the lengthiest of them all, with elements stemming from a demo called 'Eternal Soul Torture'. Not a moment is wasted, however, making it a thrilling and illustrative way to begin. A rush of continually changing blast beats and guitar riffs set the stage for the extreme metal ire that Opeth deliver so well (especially this early on). Åkerfeldt and Lindgren's exceptional ability to complement and contrast each other's playing is immediately apparent, with Nordin and De Farfalla proving to be a strong rhythm section. Plus, Åkerfeldt's ghostly whispers and chants add an effectively haunting layer that foreshadows the eerie nature of 1998's My Arms, Your Hearse.

His screams and graceful words - 'Contorted trees are spreading forth...