What could be better for a Friday night than going to a 1920’s era converted warehouse to listen to the masters of progressive death metal, Sweden’s very own Opeth?

Warehouse Live, located in Houston’s Warehouse district (where else?) is just a few blocks from Minute Maid Park, where we saw the Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves a few weeks ago. This place is unlikely to win any venue awards (apart from smallest toilets) but it was an ideal location for Stockholm’s finest.

The name Opeth, in case you are wondering, is derived from Opet which means “city of the moon” in the book Sunbird by Wilbur Smith.

A typical Opeth movement (as they call their songs, and their albums are called observations) lasts at least 10 minutes and takes the listener through all kinds of musical styles and tempos. Despite what you might think at first, these guys are very talented musicians.

Opening with “Heir Apparent”, from their new album “Watershed” Mikael Akerfeld and friends treated us to 2 hours of some of their finest music including “Bleak”, “Deliverance” and “Ghosts of Perdition” (sadly they missed out “The Leper Affinity”, a personal favorite). As you can tell by the names, this is not the kind of band who you are going to dance (or sing along, unless you can do the death metal growl without losing your voice) but they did slow down proceedings with “Hope Leaves” from their not-so-aptly titled mellow album “Damnation”.

A fine night was had by all.