Opeth - The Devil's Orchard

 At six minutes and forty seconds, The Devil's Orchard is one of the shorter songs from Swedish Prog metal legends, Opeth. Taken from their forthcoming album, Heritage released September 20th via Roadrunner Records, The Devil's Orchard shows Mikael Åkerfeldt and his melodic death gang taking a lesson from Prog heroes of the past.
 Right away, the powerful riffs that come crashing together in accompaniment with the playing of an organ shows an obvious Deep Purple influence and this is a good way to describe the single overall. Those looking for Opeth's death metal element in their music need look elsewhere. This is purely prog orienteered, and judging by the artwork of Heritage, featuring the faces of the band on a growing tree with roots that reach down to hell, on a sunny day, well, it's more of a pleasant looking spectacle, rather than say, the masses of dead trees and lurking shadowy figures that graced the cover of 2001's Blackwater Park. Therefore suggesting Heritage will be less grisly sounding and as on The Devil's Orchard show the band influenced and creating their own take on the sounds of  groups like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin.
 The style in which the track is played, creates an atmosphere of sorrow and hopelessness, matching the lyrical themes of the track, particularly with Åkerfeldt's repetition of "God is dead".
 The Devil's Orchard is one of those Opeth songs, that while played incredibly heavy, maintains a very mellow feel and feels like a good heavy song that one could relax, or perhaps sulk too rather than crazily headbang too. It's actually a very sweet listening experience.