Still Life

Still Life is the fourth studio album from the Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth. Still Life was recorded at Maestro Musik and at Fredman Studios from 15 April to 29 May 1999. The album was produced and engineered by Opeth, sound setting and additional engineering were made by Fredrik Nordström and Isak Edh and it was mastered at The Mastering Room by Göran Finnberg. The inner booklet was designed by Travis Smith and Opeth with the photography being produced by Harry Välimäki and Travis Smith.

This album was the band’s first to be recorded with Martin Mendez, who has continued to be the band’s bass player. Although he had joined the band prior to the release of My Arms, Your Hearse, he had not contributed any bass lines to that recording. This lineup is considered to be the classic Opeth lineup, with many of the band’s fans also considering this release the magnum opus of their discography.

Prior to the release of Blackwater Park in 2001, Still Life was the band’s most commercially successful album. Like most of the band’s albums, Still Life features the unusual marriage of death metal, progressive rock and folk elements that helps differentiate Opeth from their musical peers.

On this album, vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt’s death metal vocals began to deepen considerably relative to the style that had been used on the band’s earlier albums. Still Life continues the band’s experimentation with the dynamics of their songs.