First of all I owe all our REZ readers a huge and sincere apology for the delay in publishing this review. Hope I can somewhat ease the pain by getting all of you enthusiast about this brand new Opeth release, the second within a year.
When listening to “Damnation” for the first time, one question immediately came to my mind: ‘how in God’s / Satan’s name did they manage to produce yet another stunning album?’ This may sound rather paradoxical for the Opeth fan I am but I am still waiting for the day that these Swedes release an album that does not live up to my expectations. It is just hard to comprehend how this band can maintain their high quality of song writing.
Fortunately “Damnation”, this group’s seventh offering, is again not ‘the one’. It may however have very well been the album that, prior to its release, gave rise to most doubts, even in the minds of the die-hard Opeth fans; the perhaps almost painful uncertainty of what to expect from the new album, knowing that it would be the calmest album in the band’s history.

More seriously, this album would feature neither grunts nor heavily distorted guitars, only mellowness illustrated by keyboard and piano melodies. What would remain of the magic of Opeth’s sound when one of the two dominant characteristics, complex death metal versus intricate prog elements, is actually left out?
The result is perhaps the band’s most daring release or maybe this is just the album that was always imminent anyway. However its impact remains the same with the atmosphere being even more compelling, haunting and sinister. Thus there is again only one thing left to conclude: It may take a while before “Damnation” has completely settled in your system but once it has, it is there to stay and the anxiety never leaves. A masterpiece.