DREAMING BIG
While Leprous are gearing up to release their latest album, drummer Baard Kolstad’s other band, Rendezvous Point, are thinking ahead on their own new record. Prog catches up with the quintet’s Nicolay Tangen Svennæs, Gunn-Hilde Erstad and Petter Hallaråker to discuss Dream Chaser, tortured artists and the potential of some very exciting guest collabs.
Words: Cheri Faulkner Images: Jonathan Vivaas Kise
L-R: Petter Hallaråker, Gunn-Hilde Erstad,
Nicolay Tangen Svennæs, Geirmund Hansen,
Baard Kolstad.
Norwegian prog metallers Rendezvous Point describe their third full-length album, Dream Chaser, as an “epic” sound with Hans Zimmer-style arrangements, and “harmonically, rhythmically, and melodically interesting”.
Formed in 2010, the band’s core trio of keyboardist Nicolay Tangen Svennæs, bassist Gunn-Hilde Erstad and guitarist Petter Hallaråker all studied at the Conservatory of Music in Kristiansand, Norway. Svennæs and Hallaråker had been friends since they were 15, and bonded with Erstad over a love of prog music. Hallaråker was the one responsible for introducing Svennæs to prog music in the first place via Dream Theater and Tool, even covering the former’s Erotomania in an earlier band, but Rendezvous Point deviate from those more classic prog metal sounds, with Svennæs calling their sound “more melodic prog rock with some fast guitars and odd time signatures”.