Although Opeth frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt was originally recruited as a bassist for the band in 1990, he soon switched to lead vocals and guitar. Starting out with a technical death-metal sound, Opeth has evolved since its inception into the kind of progressive metal band that is more concerned with atmosphere and mood than with using multiple time signatures in a song just for the sake of being technical. The group's debut album, Orchid, came out in 1995, but it was 2001's Blackwater Park that proved to be its breakthrough effort. The songs on that album revealed a knack for subtle dynamics and melodies that crossed well outside the usual boundaries of death metal, or metal in general. With each subsequent release, Opeth has proved itself willing to color even farther outside genre lines.
