Review: Opeth at Astor Theatre

Opeth at Astor Theatre
w/ Primose Path
Monday, November 24, 2025

Few bands court as much respect as Opeth, both within extreme metal circles and in music at large. The reasons why were made abundantly clear at the Astor on Monday as the band made a six-year wait worth it for Perth’s metal and prog faithful.

The date saw not only a return of the band but also a sound that has been absent on record since 2008’s Watershed: frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt’s death growl and the stack of classic and new tracks that come with it. After a period of four albums and many more years as a (top-tier) progressive rock outfit, 2024’s The Last Will and Testament saw the band combine the prog rock theatricality and trickiness that they’ve so finely honed with the Gothic grandeur and crushing heaviness of their classic death metal sound.

Opeth’s set fittingly opened with that album’s opener, Paragraph 1, and it was apparent the band was firing on all brutal cylinders. The track is a lurching monster that winds through multiple tricky rhythmic sections, and the band navigated it without missing a beat, their dynamic shifts from loud to soft drawing much-deserved applause. The band returned to the album for Paragraph 7 and Paragraph 3 also. Both featured classy backing projections in line with the album, which was a conceptual one about a family torn apart by questions of inheritance. 3 was highlighted by its beautiful coda featuring a keyboard/guitar motif over cinematic driving drumbeats from new member Waltteri Väyrynen. 3 was played for the first time on tour, and Åkerfeldt playfully wrote off its absence thus far as being due to its difficulty to play. No such issue live, as this admittedly tricky and theatrical tune was carried off perfectly.

The reception this newer material received was indicative of the strength of their Perth fanbase, who continue to appraise the work of a band thirty-five years into its career that could easily coast on legacy. Åkerfeldt, known to be lovably prickly, tipped his hat towards this several times as he recounted the reactions certain tracks received at their time of release. Yet when Opeth played two of their supposedly head-scratching forays into prog territory—the labyrinthine The Devil’s Orchard and the beautiful, acoustic-driven To Rid the Disease—the crowd embraced them as the classics they were. The band’s ability to execute these tunes flawlessly live certainly helped, especially on Disease with its beautiful Mellotron-sounding synth washes and impeccable soloing from Åkerfeldt and longstanding lead guitarist Fredrik Åkesson.

On a night that saw beauty and brutality come together, the opening set by WA progressive metal outfit Primrose Path was also perfectly fitting. The band’s sound covered a lot of territory, with riffage that ran the gamut from thrash to stoner metal and beautiful clean vocals from frontwoman Lindsay Rose that occasionally exploded into some brutal death metal growls, often accompanied by guitarist (and brother) Brenton Rose. Lindsay had excellent stage presence and worked the crowd throughout, and the band’s natural flair for drama came alive on cuts like the pleading, lurching Unrepent or the folky-to-chaotic Irrelevance. Though only a few years into their recording career, Primrose Path have a tightness and strength of catalogue that belies their years and are ones to watch.

The remainder of Opeth’s set was reserved for the heavy classics, and the band performed them with a ferocity and tightness that outfits half their age would kill for. Master’s Apprentices is one of their heaviest tracks, and Åkerfeldt’s growls sounded as fresh as ever. Leper Affinity’s harmonised riffing captured the cinematic heaviness of their classic LP Blackwater Park excellently live and was highlighted by melodic clean soloing by both guitarists and the closing piano turn from keyboard wizard Joakim Svalberg.

The Grand Conjuration, by Åkerfeldt’s telling a ‘sellout’ single given their turn with a major label, revelled in its status as anything but, as lights flared and the band balanced the track’s heavy dissonance with its dramatic ‘clean’ sections. Demon of the Fall was absolutely epic, with Åkerfeldt nailing its protracted growling vocals and the tune’s frenzied acoustic middle section getting a clap-along. At some point a mosh had developed for closers in Ghost of Perdition and Deliverance. Though Ghost is a more epic tune, Deliverance made sense as a closer with its balance of beautiful clean guitars and vocals against not only labyrinthine riffing but also some of the most furious, double-kick-driven thrash riffing in the band’s catalogue. The song’s looping lockstep thrash coda was an excellent way to close the curtain.

Opeth frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt has many influences and musical inspirations, and indeed his lovably snarky stage banter namechecked a few of them on the night—Winger, Sodom, Burzum, Comus, and musical tip-offs with Aphrodite’s Child and the featuring of Jethro Tull vocalist Ian Anderson as narrator on the latest album’s tracks. Yet this same reverence is already reserved for Opeth themselves by other musicians and their fans, and this evening was further proof why. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait another six years to have them back.

MATIJA ZIVKOVIC

Photos by Stu McKay