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Mikael sounds even more ‘obsessed’ than our resident ex lawyer from Germany, and that is saying something. Seriously though, Mikael has often mentioned Ritchie as a huge influence and why not. I have Opeth’s Damnation album, I quite like it and being a significant departure from their ‘metal’, I can hear a English influence in the softer side of the compositions. A Wishbone Ash influenced album although others also say a little like the band Camel, also English, early 1970’s era. Listening to it now. I can also hear a Steve Wilson influence in this Opeth album, and we know where he was influenced from when a younger lad. Those two musicians collaborating at times. Thanks for the reminder.. Cheers.
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Weirdly, I did stalk Ritchie at plain sight on Avenida Corrientes in Buenos Aires, and I even touched him in front of beautiful Candice, who laughed at the scene! 
What a great couple! 
Even weirder, years later I missed meeting Mikael himself in L.A., where a friend had invited me to greet the [then] Uruguayan rhythm section of Martín and Martín, as a fellow countryman.
I idiotically elected to attend a Live Sound class instead, with a latin guy who loved - of all bands - the horrible Steely Dan and couldn’t stop talking about 'em…
Big mistake, but hey, life goes on.
It’s all good 
“Something that could have come out in 1971 on the Vertigo or Harvest labels”, is how I think Steven defined it at the time, a beautiful record.
And of course, after producing their stellar “Blackwater Park” he came all guns blazing on his own “In Absentia” album next…
Cheers, J.-
I followed them up to Ghost Reveries, then I got tired of them. Mikael reminds me of Blackmore from Rainbow, but only because of the way he tears apart and changes the band’s lineup. I think he’s worse, though and a huge asshole.
My favourite cd is Blackwater Park.
I have seen them three times, in the early era..
Ciao
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Same.
I finally got to see them on the Watershed tour, but by then López and Lindgren had long departed and it was just…not the same.
Ghost Reveries was their last great album.
(Blackwater Park their finest hour)
Best, J.-
Lopez and Lindgren: two greats!!
Without them I stopped.
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Too bad. You missed a lot of great music.
To me, it’s all stuff I’ve heard a million times before, everything inspired by prog (especially 1970s Italian prog).
Indeed Steve Wilson has been influenced by Akerfelt in that doom laden heavy riffing scene. In Absentia was the first Porcupine Tree music I heard after being gifted that and the previous two albums about 22 years ago. A significant shift to a more metal approach there indeed. The next two album I purchased and they are grand too and the two concerts I attended (2008 &2010) were sublime. I gave up on the Tree after The Incident, too much the same ole same from Wilson and maybe it is that melancholic way he writes that had me hearing enough of that previously. From what I have read from his interviews he was brought up in a very enjoyable, loving and fun environment. For some reason he is attracted to the dark, melancholic and morbid in some of his songwriting, or most of his songwriting from what I have heard. Maybe his upbringing was missing something, I don’t know. Cheers.
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All true!
I was aware of PT’s existence in the 90s but did not check them out.
Then after Blackwater Park and Deliverance, impressed, I immediately bought In Absentia and wowww, was floored.
The metal elements gave him (SW) a whole new audience, but by ‘The Incident’ it had watered down and he had nothing else to try in that field (he says this himself).
Nowadays he lives a blissful life with wife and stepdaughters and also has his successful mixing career.
Consequentially, his music is now crap.
But hey, I (we) will always have 1995-2015 
PS. I saw them at the Kentish Town Forum in 2007, Wes sang “Half-Light”'s coda just beautifully! And then the reunion in 2022 in Santiago de Chile, an amazing show.