Per Wiberg — born in Sweden in 1968 — was Opeth's official keyboard player between 2005 and 2011, the period in which the band began moving away from death metal. His arrival on Ghost Reveries (2005) coincides with the addition of Hammond organ and Mellotron to the band's arrangements — instruments that come directly from 1970s progressive rock and that, in a death metal context, produced a contrast almost no group in the genre attempted. That element would become central. On Heritage (2011) Opeth abandoned guttural vocals and began operating as a progressive rock band, and the keyboards stopped being colour and became a structural part of the arrangement. Wiberg comes from a broad path in the Swedish scene. He was part of Spiritual Beggars, Michael Amott's 1970s-style hard rock project, and passed through Candlemass, a founding doom metal band — repertoires sharing the same reference: the analogue sound and harmonic language of 1970s heavy rock. He left Opeth in 2011 and remained active in his own projects and collaborations.
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