Opeth

Monday's bill at Revolution brings a somewhat unexpected mix of the scene's big-deal heavy music acts. But what all bands share is an obsession with texture, the subtleties that poke through the intentional layers of murk. The two bands to hold the most in common sonically are probably Baroness, from Savannah, Georgia, and High on Fire, from Oakland, California. Both dredge cheap-beer, parking-lot-flavored sludgy depths, but the core of High on Fire did it first — frontman Matt Pike was originally known for founding the hugely influential erstwhile stoner metal act Sleep.

Headliner Opeth's origins, meanwhile, are farther-flung. The quintet hails from the metal hotbed of Sweden, where the group has been spinning dark, epic webs for some 18 years. While the band's roots are in highly technical, growling death metal, the driving force, frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt, has made serious work of blending that with progressive rock, folk, and even jazz. This unique and arresting synthesis, rooted in increasingly personal songwriting, has resulted in commercial success. The band's ninth studio album, Watershed, entered the Billboard 200 chart this past June at number 23.