My Arms, Your Hearse
| My Arms, Your Hearse | ||||
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| Studio album by Opeth | ||||
| Released | August 18, 1998 | |||
| Recorded | August–September 1997 (Studio Fredman, Maestro Musik and Nacksving Studio) |
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| Genre | Progressive death metal | |||
| Length | 53:13 | |||
| Label | Candlelight, Century Black | |||
| Producer | Fredrik Nordström, Opeth | |||
| Opeth chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Chronicles of Chaos |  |
| Metal Crypt | 4.75/5 |
| Metal Storm | 9.7/10 |
| Sea of Tranquility | |
| Tartarean Desire |  |
| Terrorizer | |
My Arms, Your Hearse is the third full-length studio album by heavy metal band Opeth. It was released in August 1998. It was Opeth's first album to be released simultaneously in Europe, through Candlelight Records, and in the United States, through Century Black.
My Arms, Your Hearse was the first Opeth album with drummer Martin Lopez, who answered a newspaper ad that Opeth put up searching for this spot to be taken after Anders Nordin left. Shortly thereafter the band also brought in Martín Méndez, a friend and previous band-mate of Lopez. However, Mendez did not have enough time to learn the bass parts for the album, so frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt played bass for the entire recording session. All of the songs on My Arms, Your Hearse are shorter than ten minutes, whereas on Opeth's previous album, Morningrise, every song exceeds this length. The album is dedicated to Lee Barrett (of Candlelight Records).
The title of the album is derived from the lyrics of the song "Drip, Drip" by the band Comus.
Åkerfeldt wrote all the lyrics before the music was written, to create Opeth's first concept album.
My Arms, Your Hearse was widely praised by critics. Steve Huey of AllMusic said that it "flows logically from one composition to the next, and the mostly long songs have enough variation in texture and mood to hold the listener's interest fairly consistently". Jeb of Metal Faith magazine said, "each song sort of flows into the next giving the whole album a unified feel". Jeff of Mid West Metal magazine commented, "having never been exposed to Opeth, I had them pegged as a typical black metal bands that sings about love and relationships and crap like that. I really didn't expect to get blown out of the water when 'April Ethereal' kicked in, from this point I am converted! And while the album has some mellow parts and some folk-ish characteristics, it's still a very intense album from a band who seems to have not forgotten how the fuck they got their current plateau in life." Christian Renner of Metal Crypt wrote, "the musicianship is brilliant as always and the songwriting is just what you would expect from this incredibly talented group. This is another great album that most bands out there would give their right arm to have written and that statement just speaks volumes of the songwriting talent of the Åkerfeldt/Lindgren team." Pedro Azevedo of Chronicles of Chaos said of the album, "though some parts of the drum sound are somewhat awkward at times (new drummer and bass player, by the way), the instrumental performance is as great as one would expect, and Akerfeldt's vocals are again amazing. Top quality sections just flow throughout the album, making it truly -excellent-. My Arms, Your Hearse is a indeed a brilliant proof that Swedish metal isn't entirely stagnant."Tartarean Desire's critic Cseke Róbert wrote, "this record is more powerful and more beautiful than most of today's music from this genre. The entire record is a mixture of hell-bound adrenalin and soul... My Arms, Your Hearse is such a powerful album that I consider it one of the best of the genre." Demonic Tutor (Olivier Espiau) of Metal Storm stated the album is a "trip to heaven" and also:
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