This album edges beyond the realms of reality, clearly showing no musical limits whatsoever.

Uniting vital elements of progressive rock with the chilling growls of death metal, results in material that’s easily accessible, meaning you don’t have to be a full on death head to get the point.

Clearly only Opeth could get away with it, and do it this well. It’s a tantalising journey of sounds from hard and heavy full on guitar laden metal complete with chilling growls, to soothingly soft vocals, melodic acoustic guitar work completed with traditional progressive style organ driven excursions – rare to identify exactly what’s coming next.

Opeth are at the height of their creativity here - few albums are worthy of genre-defining status, however this is a fine example of just that.

Jus Forrest, 2009