Leprous
Bilateral

From the diary of a nerd: I admit my unhealthy obsession with browsing Wikipedia. But thanks to it, while rummaging through the page of Jeff Jordan (the one behind the graphic concepts of Mars Volta), I stumbled upon these Leprous, for whom the artist designed the cover of their new record. Not knowing any better, I listened to a few tracks on the Tube and found myself in front of something truly pleasurable. I didn't think twice and ordered the work in question. After a few days, I can affirm that Norway always gives me things leading to multiple orgasms, so after Shining, Jaga Jazzist, and Motorpsycho, here they are. So, let's see...

Forcefully ejected by the epic vocal melodies shot straight in the face from the title-track, we find ourselves immersed in odd time signatures, caressed by the delicate yet full voice of Einar Solberg, who plunges your face down into a chorus that remains in your head as if it were a pop record, where guitar threads intertwine with synths in the manner of the latest incarnation of King Crimson, the more "metal" and cold one, to be clear. "Restless" tiptoes in with an arpeggio that smells of wet metal and introduces a vocal lullaby that gets destroyed in the chorus by screams akin to those of Devin Townsend (who comes to mind even in the clean parts) reclining on a backbeat that breaks your back. The splendor of "Thorn" leaves me flabbergasted, introduced by a mutant trumpet that seems like a horn, with the voice providing a chorus before a chorus that vocally could be what Jonathan Davis has been trying to do for 3 albums—pushing screams to create pure effect melodies, but with less success than the Norwegians. Just listen to the subsequent sharp bridge straight as a spindle featuring the Emperor Ihsahn with his insane and desperate screams, over which the trumpet returns in a free jazz burst breaking everything. And then comes the moment of mutation. A vinyl plays in an abandoned room, the notes of a melody lost in the void call out another melody, what seems to be a Hammond enters, on a slow and suffering piece that becomes true Radiohead blood, the guitars diluting just like those of master Jonny Greenwood, and a piano caresses a solo stretched to the extreme, until the guitar becomes acoustic, and the sounds a sea culminating in enormous electric waves. The dominant electronics merge with the acoustics in "Mediocrity Wins", the filtered voice, synths chilling like specters behind the instruments, the bass slapped in almost weightlessness over the bouncing melody. A splendid progressive staircase finale with "Painful Detour", whose entrance steps are the black and white keys of the synth, and then the unease of the guitars intertwining, breaking the heart with a giant melody, with grey tones, melancholy, and insecurities in the cold of Norway, broken by crooked progressions and soaring into a finale with a gigantic solo. 

Sometimes being a nerd pays off.