OK! After a shot of wondrous dumb arse rock n’ roll, we are back to our much vaunted and rather oversubscribed subcategory of Scandinavians doing really interesting things with metal. Leprous hail from Notodden in South Central Norway, they have been doing this for over 20 years and have gained a real reputation as being pioneers of a poppier and more accessible form of progressive metal. In fact it can be argued that their last two records “Aphelion” and “Pitfalls” contained very little metal at all and saw them move into a very interesting plane of existence combining A-ha with Radiohead.

“Melodies of Atonement” sees the return of the riff to their musical palette. Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a much heavier album than they’ve made for a while, is certainly gruffer and more granular than their previous releases. The last two albums felt like blissfully produced immaculate studio compositions, this is a much more alive album, that feels like it has been organically induced rather than synthetically replicated. It still contains Leprous’ immaculate musicality, but everything feels a little rougher around the edges. It is like they have stopped worrying about perfection and instead follow their hearts rather than their heads. A brilliant testimony to the utter brilliance of this band.