The Number Is Two
Leprous, Wheel, Aiming For Enrike
From the Beginning – 20th Anniversary Tour presented by TON Music Productions, WUK Wien, Austria 20220815
While at the relevant venues, the Extreme Metal headliners are Nunslaughter or Unearth, at the WUK, TON Music Productions finally is able to present an anniversary tour, that should have taken place months ago. Waiting outside, shirts from Gojira, Katatonia, Dream Theater and Tool are everywhere you look, giving a hint of this night’s direction.
To dive in, Aiming For Enrike from Oslo rule their gloomy Indie Post Punk with 80s Dark Wave vibes. The two-piece creates energy just from drums, loops and effects. To announce the wrong song is their thing, as the singer realizes, when choosing the wrong title for the second time before „Moustache“. After taking some time to find into their lunacy, this final nails it, while the overhead microphone and tom drum hit the floor.
Luckily Wheel stayed in the tour package as well, since it has been some time, since they played at Chelsea. They are happy to be back and have their new album „Resident Human“ with them. Having pretty long songs in general, they have difficulties to design their set, as they tell, and they are sorry, if someone is disappointed. But except of the overall gig duration, their collection of four songs is satisfying, including the younger „Dissipating“ and their phenomenal title track as final.
The ones to celebrate two decades of existence are Leprous from Notodden. One of their last tours, they shared with The Ocean and Port Noir, after visiting festivals like the Summer Breeze. They impress with two drummers like Lvmen and lovely visuals like Western intros. „Dare You“ makes think of „Blade Trinity OST“, but as Prog masters, they shift to Doom and even Pop as well. As the Ukrainian family of the singer’s partner is sitting his cat now, they dedicate one song to the people there.
Due to the incredible heat and sweat, the keyboard stops working. But Leprous improvise with a drum solo and joke with the fans requesting song titles: „Do you think this is a two way communication?“ As they usually play two tracks per album, they add „The Sky Is Red“ from „Pitfalls“ as encore, and with this, somehow a circle closes with the sound Aiming For Enrike.