GW CATCHES UP WITH TOR ODDMUND SUHRKE, A PROVEN PROG MASTER (WHO'S ALSO A PROFESSIONAL PHYSIOTHERAPIST)
By Gregory Adams
LEPROUS GUITARIST TOR Oddmund Suhrke makes magic with his hands. This much is clear through over 20 dynamic years with the Norwegian prog outfit — from the metallic riff-play of their earliest efforts, to Suhrke’s gracefully low-gain approach on 2021’s Aphelion. Up until this summer, he’d also been doubling as a professional physiotherapist ably kneading out the aches of a steady clientele — some of which are within Leprous’ ranks.
“I feel like every tour I’m on, suddenly I’m massaging someone’s ass,” Suhrke says with a laugh, of relieving his bandmates’ lower back pain. Surprisingly, Suhrke’s role as a physiotherapist hadn’t guided him toward a discipline of wrist-maintaining pre-show exercises. “You might think the opposite, like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m very careful about my routines,’ but I’ve realized — at least to me — it doesn’t really make that big of a difference.”
That’s not to say Suhrke’s playing on Aphelion is cavalier. He and co-guitarist Robin Ognedal show sublime restraint, carefully considering how they’ll poke through a lush bed of synths and orchestral strings with supple, supportive chord work (“Running Low”). Elsewhere they’re more purposely profound, whether it’s Ognedal surging through soul-stirring slide work (“All the Moments”) or Suhrke riffing out percussive, eight-string melancholia (“The Shadow Side”).
Since 2017’s Malina, Suhrke says, Leprous have become confidently spontaneous in the studio, this perhaps best exemplified by
