This is the 2nd album from Norwegian prog metal 5 piece, and I must say it’s pretty impressive. Having heard that a few members of the band play in the live line up of Ihsahn’s solo project, I knew to expect clinical musicianship, but I wasn’t expecting something with such a vibrant character as this.
The most impressive thing about Tall Poppy Syndrome is that Leprous manage to incorporate so much into their music without making any part of it sound forced or half-baked. 70’s prog rock acoustic passages with soft crooning take pride of place alongside Pain of Salvation-like sections replete with growled and screamed vocals. There’s an obvious nod towards the likes of Opeth with the mixture of styles they produce too (most notable on ‘Fate’), as well as winks in the direction of recent Amorphis and naturally, Ihsahn’s flowing proggy solo efforts. There’s also a lot of excellent piano work here and there, with gentle acoustics and synths continuing the dark, eerie vibe that saturates the album.
On tracks such as ‘He Will Kill Again’ they do have the tendency to sound very much like ICS Vortex-era Arcturus minus all the sideshow theatrics, but with just as much resourcefulness in song crafting and attention to detail. As this is prog metal you can expect a bit of noodling. Thankfully, it’s never to such an extent as to ruin a song; everything sounds perfectly in place on each track, without sounding as though they’re merely competing against each other to see who can play the most difficult riff or keep the most mind bending rhythm. My favourite track on the album comes toward the end, being the excellent ‘Not Even A Name’ which has more hooks than a fleet of one-handed extremist clerics, not to mention riffs in spades.
Ending on an epic note is ‘White,’ being the album’s longest track just short of 12 minutes. It has just about everything, emotive licks, fist pumping sections and tons of fluid prog metal swimming amongst the mellotrons and blessed-out calmer moments. For someone looking for something a bit ‘different’ that has both an extreme and a softer side, and that isn’t so out there as to be called avant-garde, you could do a lot worse than to check out Leprous.
http://www.leprous.net/
