OPETH: Japanese Tour Dates Announced

September 20, 2009

Swedish progressive metallers OPETH have scheduled the following Japanese tour dates:

Nov. 17 - O-East - Tokyo, Japan
Nov. 18 - Club Quattro - Osaka, Japan

OPETH guitarist/vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt recently revealed to Holland's FaceCulture that he is contemplating recording a singer-songwriter acoustic solo album.

"My views [regarding songwriting] have broadened a little bit," Mikael said. "I guess when I discovered Nick Drake, that's when I really got into that whole simplistic type of music that really needs something strong — strong material in order to make it come across with so little."

He continued, "I've always been wanting to do a thing like that. I've got a bunch of lovely acoustic guitars back I wanna use more. Even though OPETH could probably do an album like that, I wanna do it on my own, and in that sense, I wanna record it on my own — in my house, basically. I think I can do it well. I think I can do a good album like that.

"I'd like to maybe simplify it even more [than the OPETH acoustic stuff], and have it just chords playing, and maybe some finger-picking stuff, so I could be able to perform it if I would wanna do that. So I don't want it to be lots of tracks, like overdubbing guitars with lots of melodies; I want it to be fairly simplistic so if I wanted to, I could play it live on my own... on a stool. [laughs]"

For now, the plans only exist in Åkerfeldt's head. No songs have been written or recorded yet, but Mikael is certain the singer/songwriter solo album will see the light of day. "I'm getting ready to write because every time I sit down and play, I come up with something that I like," he said.

OPETH will take part in the European installment of DREAM THEATER's Progressive Nation tour, set to take place throughout September, October and November 2009. Also appearing on the bill are UNEXPECT and BIGELF.

The OPETH three-CD box set called "The Candlelight Years", featuring the band's first three albums, was released in Europe on July 13 via Candlelight Records.

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