LEPROUS — Bilateral (review)

Album · 2011 · Progressive Metal

1/5 · 2012-01-22
adg211288

Bilateral is the second album from Norwegian progressive metal act Leprous. The 2011 album also has avant-garde qualities and features a quest vocal slot from notable black and prog metal artist Ihsahn (ex-Emperor) during the track Thorn. The band’s entire line-up has performed with Ihsahn live for his solo material. Given Ihsahn’s strengths as an artist you know he’s not going to have just anyone backing him up in the live environment, and Leprous certainly showcase the skills to be a force to be reckoned with on Bilateral. But before you get your hopes up for a masterpiece read on.

The music here is not always the heaviest that I’ve heard for something branded as metal, even though the band can still whack out an aggressive riff every now and then and there are some harsh vocals within the album. There’s a lot of light and atmospheric stuff on the album, too much really to consider Bilateral to be completely metal. Bilateral strikes me more along the lines of atmospheric metal even at the times when the band heavy it up, adding that avant-garde twist to give a weird feel to some of the sections. To be honest so long as the music is good I couldn’t really care less if the band doesn’t blast out their stuff as intensely as humanly possible, and this is especially okay for the progressive metal genre which isn’t a style you should be looking to if all you want is bone crushing riffs. There’s just one problem with Leprous’ Bilateral though; for all the technical and progressive prowess that the band shows much of Bilateral is just plain boring. It’s all very well being flash, but when the songs lack any sort of substance, things just go straight down the drain.

While I won’t go quite as far as say that Bilateral is offensively bad, we’re are still dealing with some pretty soulless prog here that is lacking that distinct spark to make it awesome. If the band had gone down the atmospheric prog rock route for the whole album then we may have been talking a success story instead, but the fact that there is still enough metal here to warrant the prog metal tag despite the amount of light stuff means that the music sounds as if the metal was added for the sake of it. You can hear it, but it’s just there, adding nothing to the overall quality of the music. Rarely do the guitars knock out a riff of note, which is what really holds this back on the metal front. It took until the fourth track, Thorn, before Leprous delivered something on this front. Waste of Air also has a heavier sound than what the album had led me to believe was the norm up until that point, but with a 5:33 duration it’s only so far into the track I can get without noting how repetitive the guitars really are much of the time. It’s still one of the album’s stronger moments overall, but it just reinforces that feeling that the metal is there just for the sake of it.

The vocals don’t help either. Although there are some growls most of the vocals are clean and melodic, which is fitting enough for the atmospheric stuff in itself but it’s a bland performance that puts me in mind of all those so called rock acts that get chart success than anything remotely suited to metal. Even Ihsahn showing up in a single track can’t really save the vocal front. It dawns on me that maybe I just need to get a new perspective and review Bilateral from a different angle, but ultimately I write for metal sites, for readers who expect a metal perspective, and upon its conclusion Bilateral just didn’t work for me on a metal level. I’d really like it to be otherwise, since these guys really do show that they have the chops to be exceptional, but that’s all Bilateral really has going for it.

I guess that if this style of prog/avant-garde is your thing then Bilateral would sound a lot better to your ears then it did to mine. I’d say the track Acquired Taste is quite aptly named and that a fan’s only rating would be most appropriate overall, but the fact that it’s a metal album and it’s the metal that let this one down means that fan’s only rating is decidedly lower end.

3.2/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))

more than 2 years ago
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adg211288 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

You'll find that most reviewers on MMA are pretty well reasoned when it comes to negative reviews. We don't believe in being needlessly rude around here.

As for me I'm just chuffed that a review I posted over four years ago is suddenly getting comments. And who knows maybe one day I'll feel inspired to give this band another go. Believe it or not I wasn't at all impressed with Blind Guardian when I first tried them and now they're my favourite band.

TheHeavyMetalCat wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Oh don't worry, I respect his opinion and usually am on the same page with his reviews. The mind just boggles over just a single star for this one though.

One thing I will say, this is probably the kindest bad review I've read in quite a while, so props for that. I have trouble taking a negative review seriously when the author acts like a dick.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Different people, different opinions. I haven´t heard this one yet, but I´ve listened to their debut album and wasn´t too impressed either, so you can´t assume that evertything you adore is universally loved by others too. I often Wonder why some people don´t see the genius of albums that I absolutely adore, but you just have to respect that people might have other opinions and tastes.

TheHeavyMetalCat wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I think you listened to a different album than everyone else.