Sörskogen was a mysterious progressive rock side project featuring the Swedish powerhouse dream team duo of Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) on vocals and guitar and Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity, Nightingale, and many more) on bass, drums, and keyboards. The two had also teamed up in Steel, which at least yielded a four-song picture disc 7", but the fact that Sörskogen was never fully explored would most certainly have to be filed atop the list of the all-time greatest musical crimes against humanity. Period. I've been flipping out over this track for well over 10 years now, and my burning rage over their failure to do anything with the project will never subside.
There have been rumors of two to four songs having been recorded, but "Mordet i Grottan" ("Murder in the Cave") remains the only evidence that Sörskogen ever existed. For years I possessed but a mere two-and-a-half-minute clip from the second verse through the majority of the guitar solo, but the full-length recording finally slipped out online a few years later.
Why the hell were record labels not beating down their door for an album, an EP, a one-sided 7"... fucking anything!? I mean, let's be real: I'm an Opeth fan, but one could argue that "Mordet i Grottan" is better than anything they've done since, say, the early- to mid-2000s. And it unquestionably has more power and emotion than everything the band has recorded since going "full prog" on Heritage in 2011.
The song's chorus was recycled (with new lyrics) in Opeth's "To Rid the Disease," from 2003's Damnation, which was very cool, but just not the same. "Mordet i Grottan"'s fresh take on that lush '70s atmosphere, the relaxed vocal harmonies, that incredible guitar solo... it's just beautiful.
What could possibly have prevented them from seeing this through!? Why!?
