Opeth frontman, guitarist and chief composer, Mikael Åkerfeldt recently spoke with Guitar World  about the band's evolution from death metal heavyweights to prog mainstays on landmark 2003 album, Damnation. Following is an excerpt from the interview.

Guitar World: You must be very proud of this album. Some would even say it’s your finest work.

Mikael; “A lot of people seem to love it. I remember we were actually mixing Deliverance with Andy Sneap when I got the final Damnation mix from Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree). Me and Peter were in a hotel room in England. We only had one set of headphones and a portable CD player, so we couldn’t listen to it together – it had to be one at a time. 

“I asked if I could go first and he said, ‘Sure, go for it!’ I remember closing my eyes and thinking, ‘Oh, my god!’ It suddenly made me feel so mature. I remember getting the shivers! It was not… death metal. At the time I really loved death metal, and I guess I still do, to some extent, but I was amazed we could do something like that. And though we’ve always been experimental, it made me realize we could progress into genres unknown to us or our fans. 

“Steven’s mix was amazing; I mean, the songs are good, some of them I would consider great, but the mix is perfect. It’s not dated or too retro; it’s just really atmospheric. There was a lot of Mellotron, which I was happy about. I wanted more keyboards and vintage sounds, and the mix brought it all out. I don’t know who else could’ve done justice to those songs. Looking back, I’m very proud of what we achieved.”

Read the complete interview here.