With the release of two EPs and two full length albums since their formation in 2015, Wheel have gained a reputation for combining melody and scope to produce engaging progressive metal. Their third album, Charismatic Leaders – due for release on 3rd May 2024, sees the trio further investigate the weightier side of their music. “This is our heavy album,” James Lascelles states. “For the people who like metal and are into Wheel music, this is the one for them. It’s not like we’ve become a caricature of the previous albums, but we’ve definitely moved in a more metal direction, and we wanted to make a metal album.”
First track Empire sets out the band’s ambition from the first note. Beginning with a pulsating bass line fuelled with an unbridled cascading energy, the rest of the band soon join, building searing riffs during the first thirty seconds of the track until a melodic but ever fluctuating section takes over. These two elements trade places, culminating in raging vocals from Lascelles as he viscously attacks the despicable kingdom Rupert Murdoch has built. Double down and twist the knife / Pretender to the throne/ While you mourn another life / And reap what you sow. Empire is a little under four and a half minutes long but Wheel effortlessly display the structural intelligence that is embedded throughout the album.
At seven minutes, Porcelain takes more time to reveal its dark beauty. With a pervasive sense of introspection, the track highlights the struggle with the inevitability of change and the patterns of self-destruction we tend to repeat. Likening it to porcelain which can break under pressure or change of circumstances, there is also an acknowledgement of the frailties of the human condition. Holding our breath / Frozen in time beneath the waves / Turning our heads / Nobody left to bear the blame / Slowed to a crawl / Until it all begins again / We can't help ourselves. Lascelles gives an exquisite vocal performance, embodying the fragilities that live within us all and the use of musical dynamics add a deep, soul-searching quality to the anxious and at time eerie atmospheres that pervade the song.
Although it runs close to eleven minutes, Submission wastes no time in unleashing its pointed, staccato rhythms and lyrics damning the pursuit of power. The opening minutes witness Wheel delivering an intense and deliberately uncomfortable repeating motif that develops the feeling of an unrelenting and twisted mind developing its plans for domination. Juxtaposed with drummer Santeri Sakala’s magnificent tension building percussive flourishes and Jussi Turenen’s soaring guitar, Lascelles’ melodic vocal creates an unnerving yet unforgettably compelling track. With themes of manipulation, control, reducing others to insignificance and the seductive and destructive nature of power, Submission also hints at the complex relationship between the one in power and those who are compelled to follow. During the final two minutes, the trio build towards a colossal conclusion via fast chugging riffs and impassioned, agonised vocals. Swallowing hurricanes In your violence / Any who dare remain / Will cower in your wake / Paving the road to hell / You and I have been deceived / Nothing else left to give.
Lyrically, Saboteur delves further into the abuse of power, particularly by those who have been elected to lead us. “Normally, ‘charismatic leader’ is a term used to describe the leader of a cult,” Lascelles explains. “I think the meaning is changing, considering how we’ve seen politics evolve over the past ten years. It seems to be less and less about policy; it’s more and more about these cults of personality, like we’ve seen with Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. I started seeing these people everywhere and thought, ‘There’s probably enough information here to do an album.” With a narrative about the impact of self-deception and hypocrisy, the lyrics also offer the opportunity to take the challenging path towards redemption and self-acceptance. Hypocrite charlatan / Look at what you've done / Nobody left to blame / As you ensure the only outcome / Labouring every breath / Now the end is nigh / Biting at your own neck / Beckoning our annihilation. At nine minutes, Saboteur highlights Wheel’s ability to make tracks of this length pass by extremely quickly. Every throbbing bass note throughout Saboteur and fifth track Disciple is resoundingly clear but perfectly balanced with the other instrumentation of the moment. Disciple itself has something of the grandiose about it, beginning as it does with tortured strings, until the various ingredients each band member contributes to the overall recipe of Wheel blend in wondrous and exhilarating technical precision.
The short instrumental Caught In The Afterglow serves as a prologue to the final track on the album: the almost eleven-minute odyssey that is The Freeze; a title which refers to the debilitating and despondent emotions many experience as they witness atrocities around the world playing out in the far distance. Force it or be devoured / Face it and find a way to lose the doubt / A kindness in itself / Raised to embrace the tethers holding me / Whatever else may come / It will have to be enough. Here, Wheel allow the time for each musical enhancement to develop naturally. Incredibly shrewd in their use of dynamics and rhythm, they ingeniously build a towering edifice of sound. Combining every characteristic of the band, The Freeze traverses sections of dark melody, pulverising riffs and world class drumming from Saksala whose touch, power and variety during the track’s conclusion is simply breath-taking.
Charismatic Leaders is a penetrating and bewitching progressive metal album. Although the album features several long tracks, nowhere do they feel as if they are becoming unwieldly and each moment contributes to the overall narrative whether lyrically or musically. One reason for this is the excellent production. Sonically, this is one of the best sounding albums to be submitted to Hotel Hobbies this year. With Charismatic Leaders, Wheel have built spectacularly on everything that has come before while simultaneously maintaining the core of their identity and developing the ambit of their musical palette. Fans of Tool, Katatonia,Porcupine Tree, Soen and Opeth will find much to ensnare and beguile them. Examine your own charisma here…
Charismatic Leaders is released on 3rd May 2024 on InsideOut Music
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