Leprous - Melodies of Atonement (2024)

Country: Norway
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 30 Aug 2024
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Former prog metallers and current prog rockers Leprous are back with their eighth album and it's another interesting mix of styles. As has been the case lately, it's driven mostly by keyboards and vocals, both courtesy of Einar Solberg; as such, there are points on the previous couple of albums where Leprous have almost seemed like a Solberg solo effort, with the rest of the band chiming in on occasion, usually for emphasis. That's occasionally the case here, especially as Silently Walking Along kicks off the album like a gothic new wave song, with warping pulses and a slow beat behind the brooding vocals.

However, as it runs on, it's more apparent that the other four band members, who have remained unchanged across four albums now, simply aren't going to let that happen. There's a playful bass from Simen Børven to kick off Like a Sunken Ship, with interesting percussion from Baard Kolstad. The bass is easily as important as the vocals and keyboards on Limbo, if not more so, because it's the driving force, and Kolstad enforces himself later in the song too, with rhythms that roll just as much as they punctuate. Faceless opens with bass again, this time very much in jazz mode, and yet again Kolstad eventually joins him.

Just in case you're wondering if there are any guitars here, I can happily point out that there are, courtesy of both Tor Oddmund Suhrke and Robin Ognedal, though I have no idea who's responsible at any particular point in time. Most obviously, these songs have an abiding tendency to bulk up at some point, even Silently Walking Alone doing that around the minute mark, when Solberg builds to a new level too. These are initially patient guitars, but then they turn experimental, as they do on a host of songs here, perhaps most notably on Starlight and Unfree My Soul, both with weirdly minimal picking. The more I repeat the album, the more I notice guitars where I didn't think they existed on my first time through.

For a progressive band, which they've remained even after suggestions on 2019's Pitfalls that they were aiming for a poppier sound, these escalations are becoming a little predictable, albeit not so far as to be a problem yet. Every song seems to start softly, with someone doing something quicky on at least one instrument, the vocals play along for a while and then a minute or two or three in, it bulks up quickly to something much heavier, shifting from rock to metal just like that and staying there until it's time to shift back again. It's all for contrast, of course, and it works.

Fortunately, there are enough variations on that theme to keep this feeling fresh. At points on I Hear the Sirens, Solberg's vocals shift into a recognisable Glenn Danzig roar, though, of course, he then escalates in pitch beyond levels Danzig can even dream about. Like a Sunken Ship's escalation feels angry; Solberg's vocals remain clean, for a while, but in front of jagged modern metal, then there are glimpses of harsh vocals too. Self-Satisfied Lullaby is keyboards and vocals for a couple of minutes, before the drums show up, and it returns to that for a while. The bass doesn't arrive until the four minute mark and the guitars wait a minute longer, even though the song is over at six and a half.

What doesn't happen as much are changes that don't involve that bulking up. These songs tend to establish their early sound, bulk up into something heavy, then drop back to the early sound again. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but only Faceless really stands out as doing something different. It starts out soft, like a smooth jazz song, bulks up a little slower with a subdued guitar telegraphing the escalation before it actually happens. It bulks up, then drops back down again to that jazzy mindset, albeit with a nuanced guitar solo, but somehow ends up morphing into what I can only describe as a triumphant chant.

All in all, I liked this album more than Pitfalls but not as much as 2021's Aphelion. What it does, it does well, and it's consistent enough to suggest that there aren't really high or low points, just a fifty minute slab of quality music, but it didn't surprise me much. Aphelion kept me much more on the hop and I appreciated that. So this is a good album that continues to grow after many listens, as a Leprous album should, but I don't think it reaches the heights of its predecessor.