InsideOutMusic
It always pays not to expect a band whose music you like to keep doing the last thing you liked. Leprous are a band like this. As progressive and experimental musicians, we should expect them to turn in any direction they like. So, while we might not have predicted the musical style they have chosen for their latest album “Melodies Of Atonement”, we should probably not have expected “Aphelion” or “Pitfalls” vol 2.
The new record is true to the words of Einar Solberg, vocalist, keyboard player, and main songwriter. It is more stripped down, a simpler sound world, with fewer apparent overdubs, orchestral contributions, or other pieces of musical theatre, and it certainly does sound like a record made by the five of them sitting in a room, playing the music (whether or not that is how it was done). Anyone who has seen Leprous live will know that they do not need any “extras” to get across the full force of their music on their own.
So much, for now, about the overall approach. The change in the style of the songwriting is the thing which will most likely catch the ear. Although the record is not particularly short, the pieces are generally on the shorter side and have more conventional song-like shapes and are less episodic. You might even say that there are pop sensibilities in play, a definite shift in style from “Aphelion” and “Pitfalls”, which are both records with both feet planted firmly in the experimental rock enclosure. The synths lead the frontline more than the guitars – there are few long solos, and the heavy riffs of their earlier records, which can be seen as a trademark, are also either absent or backgrounded in the mix. There is also little of the edgy, polyrhythmic quality of the earlier records – there are few unconventional time signatures or unsettling passages. The first single “Atonement” typifies this, playing as a pop song, but with a Leprous colouring, Tor Oddmund Surhke’s seven-string guitar parts underpinning the song. Similarly, in “Faceless”, later on in the record, the band have clearly made a choice to write a chorus with a hook, and this is also the first real guitar solo from Robin Ognedal.
Not that there is no “rock” music on this record. There is plenty of strong, heavy music, where it matters. It appears when called on, like on “My Specter” where the heavy music arrives for the chorus, or the even more spectacular explosion of guitar around the middle section of “Like A Sunken Ship”. Baard Kolstad, one of the best drummers in the world today, necessarily has a different role on this record, providing colour and a solid backbeat more than the rhythmic fireworks he is known for. “My Specter” is decorated with some subtle ambient drumming, punctuation more than support, and fascinating for that. Similarly, “Like A Sunken Ship” and “Limbo” both have an unmistakable pulse to them which undeniably makes the songs catchy. So, there’s a strong sense of rhythm throughout, something for which we must also give bass player Simen Børven due credit. I’m unsure whether this comes from their embracing of pop sensibilities or from the increased importance of the sense of ensemble playing, but there is an unmistakeable groove to some of the pieces. This is also new territory for a band for whom rhythm is a critical component as something driving, powerful, unsettling, and dramatic.
“Starlight”, late on in the record, is perhaps the closest in approach to their earlier material, more episodic, experimental, masquerading as an accessible ballad. There is an arresting, tense guitar line sitting behind the music which prefigures the sudden shift in the music as the chorus arrives. Perhaps this, more than “Atonement”, is the track which explains the album best, if you need that. It is sophisticated and complex but that sophistication is carefully hidden. This is not to say that the record is overdone or “smells of the lamp”. Rather, it feels deliberately cut down, a conscious choice not to include too much in the first place.
With the emphasis on songwriting and shorter pieces, Solberg’s voice is necessarily even more prominent than it might have been on a record with longer instrumental passages. The singing is, of course, excellent. There is delicacy, like on “I Hear The Sirens”, but also the more explosive passages we have come to expect, like on “Silently Walking Alone”. As this writer has argued in the past, Solberg is one of Norway’s (if not Europe’s) finest vocalists, and the reasons for this, apart from the very distinctive sound of his voice, are his range and versatility. The musical device of shifting the vocal style from delicate to brutal as a way of transitioning, for example, from a verse to a chorus shows up quite often on this new record. This was used most effectively in the single “Below” on “Pitfalls” – it is arguably the making of that song – and it was used before on “Malina” too, very effectively. Given everything else about this record that is different, I’d sound one note of concern here that this is becoming a trope of Solberg’s performance, a device to ratchet up the emotion when the music can’t seem to do it on its own.
Think of it as what you would expect if five of Norway’s best progressive musicians decided to write a pop record. The question for the listener is – how well have they pulled this off?
For stalwarts of the band, this record will be seen as another step on their journey. For people who are more comfortable with the earlier abrasive, complex material or the later symphonic, progressive rock, it may sound something of a dull tone. Fans of Solberg’s voice will not be disappointed but people looking for another inventive, fascinating musical outing may not be so impressed. For anyone undecided, I would point out that some of Leprous’s strongest pieces, like “Below”, do have a careful, measured simplicity about them and the songs on this record are no different in that respect. It’s more that the songwriting and the arrangements are more consciously positioned there.
On balance, it’s a “pass” but only just. The general musicianship is first rate, if somewhat less vivid than on previous records and the vocals are also very good. For the undersigned, the main difficulty is that in attempting to write simpler, catchier music, they have stepped away from their strongest suit, which is writing complex, demanding music grounded in strong melodies. The songs here are not as memorable as they may have hoped. Not that the melodies are bad or weak, but they are not as gripping as on earlier albums. This is visible in how well Leprous’s songs worked presented in a stripped down form with just Solberg and a piano. I don’t think these newer pieces would all shine in the same arrangement. As a progressive band, they ought to get a free pass to try other styles of music. However, as we have seen from recent outings by Haken and Enslaved, progressive music is at its strongest incorporating rather than adopting alternative musical styles.
4/6 | Alex Maines
Release date: 30 August 2024