Melodic and progressive sounds was the theme of the night at the 2nd show of the national tour with Norwegian rockers Leprous and Perth’s very own Voyager. A fairly packed crowd saw the two bands deliver a highly energetic show that showcased solid grooves along with interesting and entertaining musical performances.
Opening the night was Chaos Divine, another Perth native, who at tonight’s show seemed to have stepped up their game a notch. It was more punchier and even heavier than their last performance which resulted in a very cohesive and tighter show. Their latest album “Colliding Skies” has been doing well on the music circuits and the band seemed to be riding on that success pretty well as evident in tonight’s show.
What can we say about Voyager that hasn’t been said before? Referred to as Australia’s premeier melodic prog band, Voyager always deliver the goods and tonight’s show was certainly no exception. Mixing the set with a lot of later material, the band were in their usual good mood as they proceeded into the show with a tight performance that saw a new song “Misery Is Only Company” make it’s appearance, which was released just recently with a video. The track blends mellow parts with some intricate and heavier aspects which captures a lot of Voyager’s trademark sound, it’s a good sign of more new songs to come as the crowd responded to it well. The band also threw in a little covers medley midway through the show which included a tribute excerpt from Motorhead’s “Ace Of Spades” and a crack at Disturbed’s “Down With The Sickness”. A reference to the recent cancellation of Soundwave maybe? Who knows, but as always the band sounded great and it kept the crowd riled up before Leprous hit the stage.
Leprous is not a band that we have come across previously but the progressive nature of their music caught our curiosity nonetheless. Reminiscent of bands like Tesseract and the melodic, djent works of modern prog bands, Leprous were a somewhat mixed bag of melodies and downright heaviness. When the band jumped into those pockets of groove laden riffs, everyone headbanged to it and it was a definite highlight of what the band can do. Their latest album “The Congregation” has seen the band’s presence on the music world step up and the fact that this Norwegian band has come all the way to Perth says a lot of about their reputation and Perth’s love of progressive music.
Lead vocalist and keyboard player Einar Solberg has a very energetic stage presence and his emotional performance only elevated by the crowd’s response, the band as a unite click perfectly and the odd time signatures of some songs made that fact pretty clear as it was a pretty flawless effort. Well done to all 3 bands on the night for putting on a great show, it’s gigs like this that really make the live music scene worthwile for everyone involved.
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