PERFORMING ARTS

-- Rebecca J. Ritzel

Opeth

Swedish death-metal band Opeth traffics in epic, multi-part salvos of sound that combine end-of-days riffage with touchstones of proggy sophistication: Changing time signatures! Spanish guitar interludes! At Rams Head Live in Baltimore on Sunday night, a healthy crowd was happy to forgive the soft stuff on account of the bodacious plenitude of shock-and-awe. Performing what frontman Mikael Akerfeldt said was the final date on the group's U.S. tour before returning to Stockholm, the five horsemen seemed neither tired nor exhilarated but utterly professional throughout their 110-minute prophecy of doom.

Akerfeldt's stage banter was charming and friendly even when it was profane and, well, gross -- as when he speculated about the origins of a stain on the Opeth T-shirt he said he's worn for 25 shows without washing. The singer-songwriter-guitarist is Opeth's own W. Axl Rose, the sole member who has performed on every album in the group's 13-year discography. (Opeth vets outnumber active-duty members by 2 to 1, though Akerfeldt is not yet 35. What is it with heavy-metal bands, anyway?) Daring to slip a ballad into the set after a half-hour of giving no quarter, Akerfeldt pledged to sing "with 350 percent feeling, like Jon Bon Jovi." The black-shirted (and sometimes shirtless) faithful clapped along during this and other delicate passages, presumably as a show of involvement rather than to sabotage these rhythmically varied interludes, though the effect was the same.

-- Chris Klimek