Following the untimely passing of singer Kimmo Blom in August 2022, Leverage’s future seemed uncertain. However, after some months of hiatus, founding member, guitarist and main songwriter Tuomas Heikkinen, decided it was time to give the band another shot of life. The result of this process of rebuilding found Delain singer Paolo Ribaldini and violinist Lotta-Maria Heiskanen joining the band with the precise task of renewing and refreshing the sound of the band.
With the new members joining Keikkinen, Marko Niskala on keyboards, Valtteri Revonkorpi on drums, and Sami Norrbacka on bass, the resulting album Gravity, will be the band’s sixth full-length album in slightly less than 20 years, and is said to showcase a contemporary heavy rock sound, with influences from the golden past yet still offering their own unique personality. Plenty of ear-catching melodies delivered skillfully with pristine production.
Out now is new single and video ‘Tales Of The Night’ about which guitarist Tuomas Heikkinen said: “There’s some Deep Purple’s ‘Perfect Strangers’ vibe in the opening, on purpose. I also wanted to get that thumping quarter note bass in there, along with the song being pretty 80’s altogether. The song came together fairly easily; it was like one part leading to another like it sometimes is on a good day. By the time I had cued the vocals and wrote the lyrics for Paolo, I knew he would shine on it. And he really delivered, not just the lead but the choirs, too. It came out great”.
Vocalist Paolo Ribaldini added: “This track is Leverage at their most haunting and human. Tuomas weaves harmony and melody with razor-sharp instinct, building an atmosphere that’s both cinematic and claustrophobic. The bass-driven verses stalk the shadows – then the chorus crashes in like a wall. You feel it more than hear it. It’s a song about sorrow, yes, but also empathy, survival, and that raw, almost primal connection to the heartbreak built into being human”.
It follows the band’s second single, ‘Shooting Star’ that was described as a soaring, cinematic anthem of escape, defiance, and transcendence.
Ribaldini commented on that single: “’Shooting Star’ stands out as one of the album’s strongest and most surprising tracks, with Tuomas leaving storytelling aside and instead capturing deep emotions through music and lyrics. It feels like something the classic Dio-era Rainbow could have created today. The song also highlights my bandmates’ incredible performances and is set to become a live staple. I’m especially grateful to Marko and Taksu for their passionate work on the music video, which enhances the song’s depth and offers fans an unforgettable experience.”
Heikkinen added: “’Shooting Star’ got started right after I had a Bigsby vibrato installed on my black Les Paul. I really like that twanging old school tone you get with it, and just started fiddling around basic chords. I really like it, I knew Paolo would nail the vocals exactly like I heard them in my head, and this song very much paved the way for the whole album, I knew we could now achieve sonic textures that were out of reach before”.
Finland’s Leverage is not a power metal band, nor an AOR band, and definitely not a tribute to the ’80s band. Leverage doesn’t easily fall into a genre category because for the band, it’s all about making and playing music with heart and soul and having a blast doing it. Leverage thus have developed their own style of making heavy rock and that is their mission. The sonic stamp says Leverage. No more needed.
Leverage first landed on the scene in 2006 with the independent release of their debut album, Tides. With their blend of symphonic metal and melodic hard rock, with some progressive metal twists, they created a buzz on the scene and were signed by Frontiers for the release of their second album, Blind Fire, in 2008, before moving to Universal/Spinefarm for their next album, Circus Colossus (2009).
The band became inactive not too long after the release of that third album though, sadly leaving fans craving more music from the band. In 2018, Leverage returned with a new lineup featuring singer Kimmo Blom (ex-Urban Tale, Raskasta Joulua) and guitarist Mikko Salovaara.
They first released an EP, The Devil’s Turn and then a full-length, Determinus. The band showcased that they are still able to cover a pretty wide ground musically.
Back with Frontiers Music Srl, the band issued ’All Seeing Eye’ as the album’s first single, commenting: “’All Seeing Eye’ is the type of a heavy riffing song that I have been waiting to be able to write for ages. Or rather to have a singer capable of singing something like that,” said Keikkinen. “It is very much a bow to the classic heavy rock/metal I grew up with, but there’s naturally some Leverage twist in there, too.”
