Norwegian art rockers Leprous didn’t intend to record the follow-up to Pitfalls quite so soon, but two years after their acclaimed release they’re back with the uplifting Aphelion. Frontman Einar Solberg tells Prog about their stealth recording sessions and how the positive changes he’s been making to his life are switching up the lyrics.

Words: Eleanor Goodman Portrait: Troll Toftenes

Every day, between 5pm an 5.05pm, Leprous frontman Einar Solberg allows himself five minutes to research whatever has been bothering him. Then he gets on with his evening. It’s a coping mechanism he’s established to deal with long-term health anxiety – something Prog spoke to him about in summer 2019, before the release of the brilliant, lyrically bleak Pitfalls album.

“I postpone my thoughts, basically,” he explains over Zoom, at home in Norway with his cat, Pixel. “It sounds so silly and simple, but it’s extremely efficient. Things fade away and prove themselves to be completely irrelevant.”

It’s a technique he’s been using, along with therapy, since the beginning of the year. He wanted to make a change in his life – to get a handle on the anxiety that he felt had a handle on him. “I had one New Year’s Resolution for 2021, and it was to work with my anxiety, to not let it dominate my life anymore,” he says. “And it’s been working very well, so far.”

Leprous have steadily been gathering momentum for 20 years, but 2019’s Pitfalls marked a particularly big artistic leap. It saw them push their progressive metal sound even further, upping their dramatic dynamics and bringing in more electronic accents, culminating in an epic, experimental closer, The Sky Is Red. It was also clearly the sound of a man battling his demons, and when we spoke back then, Solberg alluded to some unspoken early trauma that had clawed its way to the surface.