Page 84 - Classic Rock (January 2020)

ALBUMS
Leprous
Pitfalls SONY/INSIDE OUT
Stronger without metal.
ighteen years into their career,
although only 10 since they
Ereleased their first album, for their
sixth studio album Norwegian prog-
metallers Leprous have loosened the
metallic ties that bind, and instead focused
on progression.
It’s a bold switch of style but one that
the band foreshadowed on 2017’s Malina,
which was notably less harsh-sounding,
particularly when it came to Einar
Solberg’s vocals; he certainly sounds more
convincing as a fragile human being than
as a guttural beast.
Like their previous albums, Pitfalls takes
a thematic approach, except this time it’s
more personal as Solberg confronts his
own depression and anxieties. And an
angry roar is insufficient when it comes to
accepting and then tackling the demons
that conspire to bring him down.
Obviously there is anger, particularly
on the opening slow and portentous Below
where he seeks to bury his problems (‘And
I will lie, lie, keep it all together’), but that’s just
the first of many mood swings that
Solberg describes with deft lyrical and
musical control. Like the almost reflective
stance on his feelings of despair on I Lose
Hope, which is carried along by what feels
like a dance groove, his acceptance of
those feelings on the dreamy, atmospheric
Observe The Train, which is followed by the
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Various
hectic, regressive By My Throne with its
barrage of interconnected vocals and
guitar outbursts from Tor Oddmund
Suhrke, as if Solberg has just woken from
a vivid dream and is trying to make sense
of it all.
Anchoring the mood swings is
a common structure underlying the songs
which invariably start with synthesised
beats and keyboards to set the scene
before the guitar and drums make their
moves. They’ve also added a violinist and
cellist who come with their own
arrangements to enhance the band’s
already crowded soundscapes.
The first half of Pitfalls is surprisingly
accessible – almost poppy at times –
which might not please their hard-core
fans although it could bring them
a broader audience. The songs further into
the album get more experimental,
climaxing with the ambitious The Sky Is
Red which features a classical choir and
dense layers of sound to make its point.
Just don’t expect a happy ending. on fine form, and amid
Pitfalls is best listened to the way Solberg
and Leprous intended: from beginning to
end, and probably on headphones to keep
the outside world at bay. It will still take
a few plays before you get it, but isn’t that
what prog is supposed to be about?
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Hugh Fielder
Charm
City Devils
If You’re Going To The
City – A Tribute To
Business as usual with studio
Mose Allison FAT POSSUM 1904 BROKEN WORLD
Iggy, Costello et al join charity album number four.
comp romp. Missing in (or
When jazz great maybe out of)
Mose Allison action since
passed away 2014’s Battles,
aged 89 in Charm City
2016, he left Devils return with five tracks
behind the kind of back showcasing their modern take
catalogue that cries out to be on 80s hard rock. Inspired by
covered. His brand of jazz- and dedicated to their home city
inflected blues piano was of Baltimore (the cover depicts
trademarked by the kind of pithy, the aftermath of the city-wide
sardonic lyrics that were fire of 1904), the aim is to
irreverently ahead of their time. showcase the band’s resilience,
So when a collection of lead single Skipping Stone
contrasting voices tackle his boasting an uplifting radio-ready
songs for charity here, it’s that chorus which brings to mind
character of songwriting which a tougher, heavier Bon Jovi.
shines through a diverse range Bookending the EP with an
of new styles laid upon it. Robbie acoustic version lets the song
Fulks’s lively bluegrass treatment breathe and serves to emphasise
of My Brain works brilliantly, CCD’s obvious versatility, a fact
while the synth backing and reflected in the remaining songs:
swirling brass decoration on Iggy Tides Are Changin’ and Broken
Pop’s If You’re Going To The City Hearts Broken Bones both come
offsets his mischievous drawl with solid-gold hooks, but the
perfectly. Finally, the kittenish snake-hipped Dollar Sign$ is
voice of Allison’s daughter Amy
the best, built around a slinky,
alongside Elvis Costello on funky rhythm track and an
Monsters Of The Id make for Aerosmith-esque riff.
a memorable last hurrah. Five tracks is a bit of a water-
QQQQQQQQQQ testing exercise, but the quality
Johnny Sharp of 1904 bodes well for the future.
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Lacuna Coil Essi Berelian
Black Anima CENTURY MEDIA
Italian goth metallers reach The Pineapple
towering new heights. Thief
This feels like Hold Our Fire KSCOPE
the album Band showcase Dissolution
Lacuna Coil album in full live show.
It’s been
have been
threatening to something of
make for their whole career. a banner few
While the Italian goth-metallers’ years for Bruce
early material was ethereal and Soord and his
sumptuous, and they played it The Pineapple Thief. After years
safe with radio-friendly of acclaimed cult status on the
anthemia during their mid- peripheries of prog’s
career run, with 2016’s Delirium mainstream, their twelfth studio
they went heavier than ever album, 2018’s Dissolution, broke
before. Now, on their ninth into the Top 40, and that was
album, the band have finally followed by a hugely successful
nailed the balance between the tour culminating in a headline
disparate elements of their show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire
decadent sound. in London.
Black Anima is raw yet “We had a joke that we’d
polished triumph, packed with always play the Empire,” says
addictive hooks and memorable, Soord, “and years later we found
meaty riffs. Vocalists Cristina ourselves in the dressing room
Scabbia and Andrea Ferro are as headliners. It was like: ‘Shit,
we did it!’ We started in 1999.
a cobwebbed atmosphere on How many bands do you know
Reckless and Apocalypse their that have a real creative launch
contrasting vocals stir so late in their career?”
a bewitching danse macabre To celebrate Dissolution and its
against velvet shadows. Overall success, the band played it in its
the album is a satisfying apex to entirety on tour, and that, with
a steady 25-year evolution. the addition of the excellent
QQQQQQQQQQ 3000 Days (from arguably their WILL IRELAND/PRESS
Dannii Leivers best album, 2010’s Someone