Saturday night at Rams Head Live in Baltimore was filled with the sounds of Norway’s Leprous as they brought their progressively symphonic metal to Charm City.
Words like symphonic and heavy come to mind when listening to the Norwegian band Leprous’ extensive catalog. But with their new album, Melodies of Atonement, vocalist Einar Solberg, guitarist Tor Oddmund Suhrke, drummer Barnard Kolstad, bassist Simeon Børven, and guitarist Robin Ognedal meld that sensibility with straight ahead heavy rock fury.
While 2021’s Amphelion was truly a product of the COVID-19 pandemic (more of that in a moment), Melodies (released last month on Century Media Records / Inside Out Music) hits the ground running with the single, “Silently Walking Alone,” which they started off their set with at Rams Head Live Saturday night.
After brilliant sets by fellow Norwegians, Fight The Fight, and Connecticut’s The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, Leprous ran onto the stage and right into the aforementioned “Silently Walking Alone.” Having not seen the band live before, I was impressed at how energetic and engaging they were. Jumping from one riser to the next, Solberg kept the momentum going, inching it higher before the cacophonous thrum of “The Valley” saw Suhrke, Børven, and Ognedal darting from one side of the stage to the next.
While watching Leprous on-stage, I couldn’t help but think how cinematic these songs felt. Washes of synthesizer accented the heavy staccato rhythms and in between breaks.
It has to be said that Einar Solberg’s vocal range is incredible. Even when demanding passages come up (often in the midst of him being physically jumping back and forth) the level of control was something to witness.
Nearing the midpoint of the set, Solberg explained to the audience that when everything came to a halt during the 2020 pandemic, Leprous invited fans to sing on the album as a social media call-out. This resulted in a sort of fan choir, and some of those fans joined the band for the song “Faceless” as those fans sang along to the chorus of “Never go alone, never go alone.”
Watch the official video for “Like a Sunken Ship” by Leprous on YouTube:
Some of the biggest reactions of the night, though, came from “From the Flame” from their 2017 album, Malina. And the band capped off the night with a fan-selected encore of “Stuck” from the same album.
The setlist included:
Silently Walking Alone
The Price
The Valley
I Hear the Sirens
Like a Sunken Ship
Restless
Alleviate
Unfree My Soul
Below
Faceless (Fan Choir)
Out of Here
From the Flame
Atonement
The Sky Is Red (Outro)
Encore:
Stuck
Here are more photos of Leprous performing at Rams Head Live in Baltimore on September 7, 2024. All photos copyright and courtesy of David LaMason.
Here are photos of The World Is a Beautiful Place… performing at Rams Head Live on September 7, 2024.
And here are photos of Fight The Fight opening the evening at Rams Head Live on September 7, 2024.
