Charismatic Leaders Wheel

• 1Empire04:21
• 2Porcelain07:12
• 3Submission10:46
• 4Saboteur09:01
• 5Disciple04:12
• 6Caught in the Afterglow01:13
• 7The Freeze10:35
• Total Runtime47:20

Info for Charismatic Leaders

"Charismatic Leaders" is the 3rd studio album & InsideOutMusic debut from Finland-based progressive metallers Wheel. Since forming in 2015, Wheel have swiftly grown from underdogs of Helsinki, Finland, to an international tour de force. The angular riffs, unforgettable melodies and adventurous scope of the trio’s 2019 debut, Moving Backwards, was instantly adored by fans of megastars from TOOL to Coheed & Cambria. Then, 2021 followup Resident Human received rave reviews from publications across the planet, praising its sonic evolution and bravely dystopian themes.

"Charismatic Leaders" was meticulously crafted to meet Wheel’s ever-heightening benchmarks, with songwriting dating as far back as 2020 and recording stretching from August to December 2023. “This is our heavy album,” 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.”

"Charismatic Leaders" is destined to be looked back on as a manifesto that equally excited its listeners and made them think about the world around them.

James Lascelles, vocals, guitar
Jussi Turunen, lead guitar
Mikko Määttä, bass
Santeri Saksala, drums

Wheel
is a Finnish prog-metal band based in Helsinki, consisting of James Lascelles (Vocals/Guitar), Santeri Saksala (Drums) and Jussi Turunen (Lead Guitar).

Since 2017, the band has released 3 EPs and 2 albums and their third album, ‘Charismatic Leaders’ will come out on May 3rd. ‘Empire’ the first single, is available everywhere now.

They released their debut album 'Moving Backwards' in February 2019, and just announced their second album 'Resident Human' to be released on March 26th 2021. "Sonically, we wanted to make an album that was a bit rougher around the edges than Moving Backwards was; we live in a time where it is possible to edit and manipulate nearly everything and this time, we chose not to edit far more than we chose to fix things; this mentality seemed to tie in well with the album theme. We believe that the thing that gives our band it's unique chemistry is where the groove lies between the players and we wanted listeners to be able to really feel that through these recordings.

Topically, the album is a figurative deconstruction of humanity, exacerbated through the lens of 2020 and several of the songs are inspired by 'Hyperion Cantos' by Dan Simmons.

The constant thread through all of the songs is that they consider a narrow aspect of what it is to be human, in all of our brilliance and all of our ugliness."

This album contains no booklet.