Above the Beyond

Above the Beyond is the fifth album, released on 15 October 2021, on which Leverage carefully let Nordic melodic metal's clarity coexist with thick hard rock riffs. Frontiers issued it with the same six-piece as before. At nine songs it is their shortest, and denser for it. The twin guitars of Mikko Salovaara and Tuomas Heikkinen play only what each song needs rather than showing off, breathing naturally between lyrical phrases and heavy ensemble work. On the opening “Starlight,” on “Emperor,” which got a video, and on “Angelica,” Kimmo Blom's voice moves between power metal reach and a shadowed delivery. “Into the New World” and “Do You Love Me Now” carry open choruses, while “Under His Eye” and “Galleria” keep their tension, and the quiet “Silence” lowers the curtain. Track seven, “Falling Out of Grace,” was inspired by Menni Revonkorpi. A mature Nordic hard rock record that never settles for mere exhilaration. Blom sang through illness during this period and died in August 2022; this became his last studio album.