Opeth // Grand Magus // The Last Will & Testament European Tour 2025 - Live Review // The Roundhouse // London

Opeth // Grand Magus // The Last Will & Testament European Tour 2025 – Live Review // The Roundhouse // London

Thousands of metal heads flocked to the three thousand, three hundred-capacity venue in Chalk Farm, Camden, to witness Opeth perform new songs with growled vocals, an event that has not happened since 2008’s Watershed. This no doubt contributed to the show’s selling-out. The building is a more-than-familiar haunt for the Swedish progressive metal quintet, which has filmed a few live albums at different London venues. On the last Wednesday night in February, they returned to the location of The Roundhouse Tapes.

As part of their own Sunraven tour, doom metal veterans and fellow Swedes Grand Magus were special guests on the evening. Thirty minutes after the doors opened, the trio walked on as the eager crowd cheered and a cover of Elvis Presley’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ blasted from the speakers. Armed with his flying V, frontman JB Christoffersson provided riffs and lead vocals while bassist Fox Skinner also sang, both vocalists employing a clean yet powerful style. Despite releasing a new record last year, it was songs off of Hammer of the North from 2010 that kicked off, closed and dominated GM’s setlist, taking up more than a third of the tunes they played.

‘Steel Versus Steel’ required “a bit of” the audience’s “participation” in the form of singing and after thanking everyone for their efforts as they applauded, JB revealed that the last time his band were on the same stage was a decade ago. The crowd continued to get involved by clapping along to ‘Ravens Guide Our Way’ before banging their heads to the title track of Magus’ latest album, Sunraven. Ludwig Witt laid down some deft drums during the intro of ‘Untamed’, a song that lived up to its name. London was challenged to be “stronger and louder” than Bristol ahead of the eighth and final track, before confidently belting out a series of whoa-ohs ahead of the final chorus and giving Bristolians a run for their money as they continued long after the music ended.

The Stockholm trio exuded macho magic that enthralled many. A fired-up forty minutes from the opening artist and attendees alike.

Grand Magus setlist:

I, the Jury

Skybound

Steel Versus Steel

Ravens Guide Our Way

Sunraven

Untamed

Like the Oar Strikes the Water

Hammer of the North

Photography by Artur Tarczewski

Review by Kira Levine

New album Sunraven https://grandmagus.bfan.link/sunraven

Opeth arrived onstage a few minutes early to the sound of Aphrodite’s Child’s ‘Seven Bowls’ and were greeted with a round of applause before they even got started. The headlining purveyors of prog lead with the opening “paragraph” of their newest album, The Last Will and Testament, which featured some grooving bass work from Martin Méndez and was accompanied by some impressive visuals in the form of multiple screens behind the musicians and dramatic lighting that rained down on the gleeful fans.

‘Master’s Apprentices’ was the first of a double dose of death metal Deliverance, boasting the best of both when it came to vocals as Mikael Åkerfeldt effortlessly switched between unclean and unclean styles. The next stop was Blackwater Park’s inaugural chapter, accompanied by images of monochrome woods reminiscent of the album cover, promoting a sense of nostalgia for those standing and seated as they growled and sang along. Keyboardist Joakim Svalberg’s gentle, melodic outro provided moshers with a well-deserved break and also allowed his band members to momentarily exit the stage.

The aural death-dealers were welcomed back with a hearty round of applause and a sign that read: “the Beatles are shit”. The laughter did not stop there as Mikael revealed that a priest tried to “draft” him in Bristol (Opeth played in this city the night before). When the religious man asked where he stood with God, he answered, “far away” and explained that he is more of an “andlig” person, which is Swedish for “spiritual”. Onscreen lyrics during ‘§7’ made sure many could keep up with the barrage of words featured in one of their latest songs, the mix of melodic singing, death growls and spoken word making it a vocal highlight of the show. Somehow, a Spice Girls reference was made a third of the way into the set, and Åkerfeldt revealed that he shares his birthday, down to the year, with Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham. Attendees needed little prompting as they sang the last choruses for ‘In My Time of Need’, resulting in an anthemic experience and proving the track to be a great sole representative of Damnation.

It was story time again when the front man reminisced about playing to an audience of one in High Wycombe years ago and the person who eventually signed Opeth hailing from that town. At the end of ‘The Night and the Silent Water’, someone began chanting Waltteri Väyrynen’s first name very loudly, and then many joined in, clearly impressed by his phenomenal drumming. Another slice from The Last Will… was followed by ‘Ghost of Perdition’ which caused someone to throw an Opeth / Ikea parody shirt onstage. This made Mikael ask if the individual was suggesting the musicians had “sold out”. The lead vocalist apologised to the thrower, a Dubliner, that his city is not part of the tour and promised to return and listen to “some [Thin] Lizzy”.

As Birmingham would be the lucky city to witness the band next, Aston Villa was referred to as “Geezer Butler’s favourite football team”, much to all the Black Sabbath fans’ delight. Åkerfeldt used to play football as a child, in various positions on the field and claimed to have won the title “MVP” (most valuable player) as goalkeeper and his prize was a packet of banana ice cream, which tied on rather nicely to ‘A Story Never Told’, the only song that uses actual words instead of digits/numbers and symbols for its title on the November-released full-length. Some brilliant prog moments and a spellbinding Fredrik Åkesson solo later, and the main set was complete.

Disappearing for less than two minutes as cheers, claps, and whoops could be heard, the men returned to the spotlight to perform the title track off of Sorceress with illustrations from the album art animated on the screens behind and around the band. One King Diamond drum fill later, ‘Deliverance’ rounded out the duo of mighty encore tunes.

Opeth setlist:

1. §1

2. Master’s Apprentices

3. The Leper Affinity

4. §7

5. Häxprocess

6. In My Time of Need

7. The Night and the Silent Water

8. §3

9. Ghost of Perdition

10. A Story Never Told

Encore: