Opeth - The Throat of Winter (2011)

Opeth's, 'The Throat of Winter' single was originally featured on Roadrunner Records' digital EP, 'Blood & Metal,' which was some sort of promotional thing for the then new God of War video game. The song received its physical copy release on April 16, 2011 as a 7" vinyl to celebrate Record Store Day and was limited to just 1000 copies. Side A features the song while Side B of the 7” is etched with the band’s logo and thankfully this single also received its own unique artwork designed by Travis Smith, which as usual is wonderfully done.

The song itself is a fast paced acoustic composition that's somewhat different sounding in style compared to previous Opeth acoustic pieces. The song has, of course, strong cleanly sung vocals from Mikael, but musically it holds something of a psychedelic vibe to it with some sort of odd Mediterranean/Greek/whatever like undertone, which I suppose makes sense as it was originally intended for a video game that centers around Greek mythology. Naturally it is also quite progressive and shifts between a cheery sort of mood to a darker area and then back to a trippy sort of area. All in all its also quite catchy with some memorable parts from Mikael's lyrics getting stuck in my head each time I've listened to it as well Per's keyboards are brilliant as ever and the guitar work seems different but also great.

More than likely if you weren't at a record store on the day of this ones release you probably wont be able to get your hands on it and I think its a bit funny to see folks already trying to cash in on it through eBay... with not much success though. Anyway, definitely a nice little item to own for the Opeth fans as well it should be interesting to see if this song is any indication of future Opeth material.