The good news here is that new music from Mikael Åkerfeldt is coming, just not in the form of new Opeth. According to Åkerfeldt in an interview with Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess, he's been working on a score for the six-part Netflix miniseries Clark throughout the pandemic.
"Not [working on new music] for Opeth. In a way, I don't wanna come across as insensitive, but the pandemic hit at a good time for me, work-wise, because I've been offered to do a film score, basically, or for a series. The director is Jonas Åkerlund, who's mostly known for making music videos for Madonna and Lady Gaga. He has a past in heavy metal. He was in a band called Bathory years ago.
"And he’s a friend of mine. And he asked if I would be interested in scoring music for a TV series that's coming out on Netflix about a guy called Clark Olofsson, who was a famous, infamous robber, basically. So it's almost like a biopic. So I'm writing music that's supposed to fit in from the '40s and onwards. So that's been fun. So I've been doing that. I'm still kind of working on that."
Åkerfeldt later added that the music he's working is vaguely Opeth-esque, and could potentially be repurposed for Opeth in the future should it not be included in Clark.
"Some stuff is kind of Opeth-y sounding, I guess, and some stuff is definitely not Opeth-y sounding. But it's been really fun. And some what I think are really nice things I'm almost hoping it’s not gonna be used, so I could take it for Opeth."
Opeth released their last album In Cauda Venenum in September 2019.
