Opeth, one of our all-time collective favorite progressive metal bands, have been causing quite a stir in the metal media lately with news about their forthcoming album which now has a name and a release date. Like their Swedish metal-brethren in Meshuggah, fans go nuts pretty much anytime a member of Opeth so much as takes a dump.

The new album will be called Watershed and will be released on June 3 in the U.S. (June 4th internationally) on Roadrunner Records. The album will have seven songs, all written by Mikael Akerfeldt except one which was co-written with new guitarist Fredrik Åkesson (ex–Arch Enemy). Three cover songs that will not appear on the regular release of the album were also recorded: “Bridge of Sighs” from Robin Trower’s 1974 LP of the same title, “Den Ständiga Resan” (sung in Swedish) by Marie Fredriksson, and the Alice in Chains song “Would?”

Is it time to get excited about new Opeth yet? Will the band be the same without Peter Lindgren? What kind of toilet paper does Mikael Akerfeldt use?

-VN

PS: While searching Google Images for the above logo, I came across this bizarre post in which the author attempts to use metal sub-genres and Opeth as an analogy to explain document management. What the fuck?