vote
6.0
- Band:
Leverage - Duration: 00:45:25
- Available from: 20/06/2025
- Label:
-
Frontiers
Streaming not yet available
The career of the Leverage has seen two distinct phases: one initial, approximately between 2002 and 2009, with the publication of three full-lengths (including the excellent “Blind Fire”) and the Reunion, starting from 2018, with a new singer, Kimmo Blom, from which an EP and two other full-lengths arose. Unfortunately, in 2022, Blom's premature disappearance marked a serious blow, which led the band to reflect whether or not to continue. In the end, Heikkinen and his companions opted to go on, recruiting Paolo Ribaldini, an excellent singer, perhaps not yet well known, who had already collaborated as a chorister with Leverage, but also with groups of the caliber of Delain, Beast in Black and Rhapsody of Fire, just to name a few. Together with him, there is also a new drummer, Valtteri Revonkorpi, and a violinist, struggle-marria Heiskanen, accredited in line-up, although his participation in this album seems to be still quite marginal.
A characteristic of the leverage has always been to be difficult to catalog: their style in the past has been able to accommodate power metal, aor, neoclassical, even folk and prog elements, without being able to make them fully return to any of these categories. In fact, the band seems to want to continue on this lines, mainly proposing a melodic metal/rock open to different influences.
The album starts immediately with two peak pieces, or “Shooting Star” and “Tales of the night”, two fairly direct songs, which well embody this new course of the Leverage. It disappoints a little instead “Hellbound Train”, which seems to have been conceived to be a powerful song, but which presents a somewhat 'muffled' sound, too covered by the keyboards; In this sense, we prefer them rather “All Seing Eye”, a piece with a nice hard rock riff with a strong Rainbowian flavor.
The other songs follow the style of the former a little, between melodic metal and power metal (in particular “King Ghidorah” is definitely more power), but they cannot be equally incisive. The final trace is an exception, the title-track, which is divided over almost ten minutes, with several thematic changes and a remarkable interpretation of reversals, at times really charged with pathos.
“Gravity” is therefore a record that marks the beginning of a third phase in the career of the leverage, an album that sanctions a new rebirth after the band has risked for the second time to dissolve forever. The choice of ribaldini was undoubtedly positive and the couple composed of Heikkinen on guitar and Niskala on keyboards listens certainly to good things. Our feeling is that, however, to get to the way back on track, it would still be necessary to be some small effort, at least in terms of songwriting and production. The contribution of the latest grafts can undoubtedly be able to bring new sap and new ideas within the group, therefore we are confident that the leverages will be able to enhance all their current potential.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
