OPETH And KATATONIA To Join Forces For North American Tour

As expected, progressive metallers OPETH will join forces with fellow Swedes KATATONIA for a North American tour this spring. So far, only one date has been leaked: May 10 at The Machine Shop in Flint, Michigan. The complete itinerary will be revealed this week. Tickets go on sale Friday, January 11 at 10 a.m.

In a November 2012 interview with Roadrunner, OPETH guitarist/vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt spoke about the band's 2013 plans. "We still have a few details to work out, but we were supposed to be in the U.S. in the fall [of 2012] and we didn't do it, so we're gonna be in the U.S. in the spring, I think. But it's not completely settled yet, so I'm not sure. I can't say 100 percent that we're gonna be there. But 90 percent sure, we're going on a North American tour, which will be the last lengthy tour that we do for this record."

Åkerfeldt also revealed that OPETH has been recording shows on its recent tours but wasn't sure if and when any live material will be released. "We bought some type of rig, so we can record every show," he said. "I'm not sure if we’re recording every show, but we did record the London show, and we're probably gonna continue recording whenever we can."

He added, "But I'm not sure what we’re doing with that stuff, to be honest. It's always good to have material, and maybe further down the line, if we have a bunch of shows recorded, we can pick and choose the best segments of the shows and maybe put something out, but we don't know yet."

In a recent interview with Uppsala Student Radio 98.9, Åkerfeldt stated about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's follow-up to 2011's "Heritage" album: "I have one new song, which I really like, a new song. It's the most miserable song I ever wrote, and it's beautiful, I think. And then I have a song that we jammed, actually, on tour. I came up with a little lick and became a bit of a director and just told everyone to play this and that, and we started jamming on something. And it sounded, immediately from the beginning, which was also my idea, it sounded like the band GOBLIN, if you heard them, the Italian [progressive rock] band. So it's a crazy riff, a GOBLIN rip-off, and the song is called 'Goblin', which is a good title, I think. And we're gonna record it. I'm not sure if that will be too much of a fucked up song to be on the record, because there will definitely only be one song ever we do that is gonna sound like that. So maybe it'll just be some extra thing that we have. But it's really good; I love it. But then again, it's just because of the closeness to GOBLIN."

OPETH performed a special "unplugged" show on November 16 at the Union Chapel in London, England.

OPETH's new album, "Heritage", sold 19,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 19 on The Billboard 200 chart.