Truth be told, 2016’s Sorceress isn’t much better than Pale Communion. “River” showcases Åkerfeldt’s improved clean singing skills and a more finely-attuned ear for vocal melody, but comes too late to save the record’s momentum.

But respectfully, and not to be too pedantic, if I want to listen to Goblin then I’ll listen to fucking Goblin. In contrast, “Elysian Woes” can’t really justify its six minutes of acoustic noodling, and “Goblin” succeeds at copying the style of its inspiration, the esteemed Italian prog outfit. Sure, it begins with some gusto: “Eternal Rains Will Come” is gorgeous, and “Moon Above, Sun Below” is about as good as a ten-minute Opeth tune written past 2010 can get. While I’m not prepared to say that Opeth have an outright bad record, Pale Communion at least has some serious flaws. It’s their strongest in years, and to celebrate, we’re ranking the band’s entire discography from worst to best. This week, the band releases their 13th album, In Cauda Venenum.

Åkerfeldt’s decision to depart from extreme metal, and the original sound that he created, while at the peak of its popularity is equally baffling. The band inspired a legion of imitators that all failed to nail down what made Åkerfeldt’s music special. Even so, the band grew into a hard-touring, headlining act with a remarkably consistent discography. Long songs mixing together two notoriously challenging styles of music shouldn’t be this memorable, emotional or lovable. Progressive extreme metal was hardly new, but Opeth’s consistent and consistently likable songs stood apart from their cohorts. After years of rehearsals and lineup changes, the outfit, led by singer and guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt, burst onto the scene in 1995 with no publicly released demo, and a fully-formed sound combining folkish progressive rock and elaborate death metal, often in extended song structures.

Sweden’s Opeth have produced one of metal’s most curious discographies.

Best progressive metal albums