Tag: Over The Top

EINAR SOLBERG launches new single “Over The Top”

First solo live performance this weekend at Prognosis Festival

EINAR SOLBERG – frontman of Norwegian rock mavericks Leprous – recently announced the release of his debut solo album ‘16’ on June 2nd, 2023. Wildly diverse, but spiritually rooted in Einar’s well-established musical world, ‘16’ is an album that brims with surprises and spinning curveballs and features a collection of intimate but extravagant collaborations.
Today, ahead of his first ever live performance of his solo material at Prognosis Festival in the Netherlands, Einar is pleased to announce his cinematic new single ‘Over The Top’.
Watch the video, directed by Elena Sihida, here:

As mentioned, Einar will be performing this material for the first time ever at Prognosis Festival in the Netherlands this weekend, with an appearance at the London edition the following weekend. For these shows he will be joined by Hrafnkell Örn Guðjónsson (Agent Fresco), Ben Levin (ex-Bent Knee), Chris Baum (Bent Knee), Ari Karason (Mezzoforte) and Ruben Aksnes (Maraton). You can find more details here: https://www.prognosis-festival.nl/

Watch the previously released videos below:
 ‘A Beautiful Life’: https://youtu.be/XAE2y2RfHtg
‘Grotto’ (feat. Magnus Børmark): https://youtu.be/r_Ol_LSma6k

‘16’ will be released on Ltd CD Digipak, Gatefold 180g 2LP + LP-booklet & Digitally, and is now available to pre-order here: https://einarsolberg-artist.lnk.to/sixteen

Einar Solberg is as renowned for the tender honesty of his lyrics as he is for the eccentric majesty of Leprous’ music. But even by his usual standards, ‘16’ is an extremely emotional and dynamic piece of work. Einar describes the record as “the closest I’ve ever come to writing a concept album” and explains that the new songs are about a very specific and transformational period in the musician’s life. This is the sound of a restless spirit in his absolute element.

“It’s called 16 because that’s when the first really, really bad things started happening to me in life. From 16 to 19, there were a lot of very life-defining moments that happened to me, and that changed me,” he says. “That’s when I kind of lost my innocence and I started realising that life is serious and bad shit can happen. A lot of pretty drastic things happened within those three years. But this album is not only about the bad things. It’s also about some of the career-defining moments, like the moment I started playing with the band and began to find a community to belong to. Emotionally, I’m a bit of everything, so it covers the entire emotional spectrum!”

’16’ finds Einar collaborating with everyone from modern prog contemporaries like Bent Knee’s Ben Levin and Agent Fresco’s Toti Gudnason, to experimental cellist (and regular Leprous live musician) Raphael Weinroth-Browne and Magnus Børmark, best known as a member of Norwegian alt-folk troupe Gåte. He also once again collaborates with Ihsahn and Star Of Ash amongst many others. The record was mixed by mixed by Adam Noble (Placebo, Biffy Clyro, Nothing But Thieves) and mastered by Robin Schmidt (The 1975, Placebo, The Gaslight Anthem, etc.). The cover artwork was designed by Elena Sihida.

The full track-listing is as follows:1. 16 (feat. Raphael Weinroth-Browne)
2.Remember Me
3.A Beautiful Life
4.Where All The Twigs Broke (feat. Star Of Ash)
5.Metacognitive (feat. Raphael Weinroth-Browne)
6.Home (feat. Ben Levin)
7.Blue Light (feat. Asger Mygind)
8.Grotto (feat. Magnus Børmark)
9.Splitting The Soul (feat. Ihsahn)
10.Over The Top
11.The Glass Is Empty (feat. Tóti Guðnason)

Einar will debut his solo material live with two exclusive shows at the Eindhoven & London editions of Prognosis Festival (15th & 22nd April respectively). You can find more details here: https://www.prognosis-festival.nl/

Review – Jump – Over The Top – by Emma Roebuck

Jump Over The Top Cover

Music has long been a mechanism for storytelling and the broad church of the Prog scene has it’s fair share of these tellers of tales. Some tell tales of ancient mythology, others speak of tales from the nursery; some speak of dystopian futures while Jump speak of a real world of toil, strife and pain but still retain a joy of living. They are truly progressive but not by creating some ‘new’ sound or feel but by drawing together a whole cadre of musical styles and yet. make it sound like themselves and not a mash up or a messy sound.

Certain musical journalists have gone on record as saying that this is nothing new or ground breaking, I disagree with them in that prog music is not always about being ground breaking and shattering barriers. I would say that it is about evolving as musicians and travelling on your own journey, bringing people along with you on that journey and giving pleasure.

The 15th album from the band that is Jump is the end of a long line of product developed over 26 years. This album has been anticipated by fans of the band for some time now. Many of the songs have been in the live set for a while and, as such, will be instantly familiar to those fans. The worry that the translation from live performance to studio recording could take some of the gloss off the songs is quickly destroyed after one listen of the album.

Jump Live

‘Black Pilgrim’, the last studio album, was rooted in folk tradition. It suited John Dexter Jones’ vocal style like a glove. ‘Over The Top’ brings them to a more rock based feel but it does not feel like a backward step. The overall feel of the album is one of a wide variety of musical styles gathered together from a long period of writing. The benefit of this is that the quality is consistently high across the album yet it does not feel like a disparate collection of music that has been cobbled together.

First, the familiar tracks that have been promised. The Wreck of the St Marie has been a live track in the set for over a year, a tale of wreckers off the coast of Anglesey based on a true story of the Royal Charter. The drama of storms and the deliberate wrecking of a cargo of gold treasure and pillage. This is a masterpiece of storytelling that Jump are so good at you can feel the time the place and event happening  as song unfolds.

Fast forward to Johnny V. We all had a Johnny V in our lives, the one guy that seemed to have an almost telepathic connection to what was the great music of the time. The prophet who you knew would keep you right with music. The story of his passing and the celebration of Twisted Sister in the cathedral as he shifts off this mortal coil is strangely fitting in a time when more of our heroes have crossed the veil recently.

The album crosses the centuries like a time lord ‘Jumping’ from one historical event to another with ease. The title track Over The Top personalises the story of a father and his son in WW1 and the sacrificial lambs that generation became in the 1914-18 ‘war to end all wars’.

50 is a real rock out and feels to me like a railing against the aging process and a demand to not give in to the ravages of aging.

Overall this is an accessible album full songs that Jump fans will enjoy but, I think, if you have never heard of Jump as a band then this is a great introduction  to find out what they are about. You won’t get a revolutionary new sound or style but, I believe there are no new styles to found anyway, just reconfigured old ones. If you like music that has melody and some sing-along choruses along with the great story telling tradition of the Bard this is for you.

Released 12th March 2016.

Buy ‘Over The Top’ direct from bandcamp