Tides

Tides is the 2006 debut on which Leverage, working out of the Jyväskylä area of Finland, combined thick guitar riffs, low-centred rhythm and soaring vocals. The band grew out of a collaboration between guitarists Tuomas Heikkinen and Torsti Spoof. Their first choice of singer was Kimmo Blom of Urban Tale, but he was too busy; Heikkinen instead found Pekka Heino after hearing him sing a Bon Jovi song on a mobile-phone recording. Heino also fronts Brother Firetribe. With Marko Niskala on keyboards, Pekka Lampinen on bass and Valtteri Revonkorpi on drums, it was cut at Studio Audio in Jyväskylä between November 2005 and January 2006. Spoof and Heikkinen produced; Mika Jussila mastered at Finnvox. A promo single pairing “Fifteen Years” with “Marching to War” came attached to Inferno magazine in spring 2006. It reached No. 27 in Finland, was released in Japan by Avalon, and was reissued by Frontiers in 2008. The songs carry power metal's lift and hard rock's muscle while keeping melody's outline clear even at their heaviest — a record that marked out a new standard-bearer for Nordic melodic metal.