It’s an understatement to say that Opeth’s forthcoming Pale Communion is highly-anticipated. In fact, many longtime fans were super bummed out when the album was pushed back from June 17 to August 26th. But some things are worth waiting for, and Opeth is certainly one of them. Now they’ve released the single, “Cusp of Eternity,” with pre-orders for the album starting tomorrow. If you pre-order it, you’ll get an instant download of the single, as well as a second track that will be released on July 15th. 

As far as the song itself, it sounds like a nice compromise between the acoustic sea change that was 2011’s Heritage and their past material. It doesn’t sound like Mikael Akerfelt is going to be growling again any time soon, but the song’s definitely upbeat and proggy, and actually pretty hypnotic. It’s streaming over at Metal Sucks, and it’s 5:28 out of your day that you won’t regret.