Orchid is the debut studio album by Swedish progressive metal band Opeth, released on May 15, 1995, in Europe by Candlelight Records and on June 24, 1997, in the United States by Century Black.

It was reissued in 2000 with one bonus track, "Into the Frost of Winter," an early, unproduced rehearsal recording by the band.

The recording sessions took place at the old Unisound studio in Finspång, with production handled by Opeth and Dan Swanö.

Instead, Lee Barrett, the founder of Candlelight Records, was impressed by an Opeth rehearsal tape and decided to sign the band.

[2] Isberg invited Mikael Åkerfeldt (formerly of the recently disbanded band Eruption) to join Opeth.

By that time, Döring and Dimeo had left, prompting Opeth to recruit Kim Pettersson and Johan DeFarfalla from the band Crimson Cat to join them onstage.

Åkerfeldt then invited his friend Peter Lindgren, who was playing in a joke band called Sylt i krysset, to join Opeth as a bassist.

Stefan Guteklint joined as bassist but left shortly after the band signed with Candlelight Records in 1994.

However, Lee Barrett from Candlelight offered to produce an album, a proposal Åkerfeldt found "quite weird.

"[6] Anders Nyström (of Katatonia) revealed that Candlelight's interest was sparked by a rumor from Samoth (of Emperor), who had included a few seconds of "The Apostle in Triumph" on a tape of unsigned bands sent to Barrett.

[6] Åkerfeldt later received a call from Barrett, who expressed his interest in releasing a full-length Opeth album.

[9] For the recording, the band asked Johan De Farfalla to play session bass guitar.

[8] Due to a mix-up during Orchid's mastering process, the ending of "Requiem" was mistakenly placed at the beginning of "The Apostle in Triumph."

Jim Raggi commented, "If you're wanting the more deathy and song-oriented Opeth, skip down to My Arms, Your Hearse and go from there.

"[12] Matt Smith observed that "with Orchid, the band introduced its blend of intricate, down-tempo acoustic guitar and piano lines and swinging, Celtic-sounding, distorted rhythms.

This song includes segments that were later reworked into "Advent," the opening track on Opeth’s second album, Morningrise.

"[20] The first two songs they wrote together were "Requiem of Lost Souls" and "Mystique of the Baphomet," which were later reworked into "Mark of the Damned" and eventually became "Forest of October.

"[3] When Isberg left the band, Åkerfeldt and Peter Lindgren felt they had discovered a unique approach to playing music.

"[17] Later, on The Roundhouse Tapes live album, Åkerfeldt described the song’s lyrics as "absolute black metal nonsense."

A second problem arose with the album: the lyric pages were printed in the opposite order from what Opeth had expected.

"[15] However, before the release of Orchid, Åkerfeldt commented:[22] Most people, at least in the Swedish scene, were recording at Unisound, and Opeth, before the album came out, was considered a joke band.

We were total outsiders.John Serba of AllMusic said that Orchid was "quite an audacious release, a far-beyond-epic prog/death monstrosity exuding equal parts beauty and brutality – an album so brilliant, so navel-gazingly pretentious that, in retrospect, Opeth's future greatness was a foregone conclusion.

"[1] John Chedsey of Satan Stole My Teddybear stated that the album is "one of the more stunning and devastatingly powerful debuts of any metal band in any genre.

"[23] Jim Raggi of Lamentations of the Flame Princess wrote that "perhaps the most easily recognizable voice in all of extreme metal, Mikael Åkerfeldt really does make some noise in his debut.

Despite Symbolic, Slaughter of the Soul, Domination, The Gallery and Storm of the Light's Bane blowing minds in 1995, it was Opeth's Orchid that changed death metal forever.Not all critics were positive, however.

One of these performances took place at the London Astoria, featuring Impaled Nazarene, Ved Buens Ende, and Hecate Enthroned.

[28] In 2000, it was reissued in Europe by Candlelight and in the United States by Century Media, with one bonus track, "Into the Frost of Winter."