Leprous – Bilateral
This is probably the toughest album out of the five that I’m recommending. It’s not that it’s the heaviest, because it definitely isn’t. That honor goes to The Dead Eye. What makes this album so hard to access is that it’s actually a complex and extremely layered piece of work. Don’t get me wrong here because I love the absolute shit out of it. In fact, it’s one of my favorite releases of the decade.
However, there are songs here are dense and don’t use standard time signatures, which is probably the most difficult obstacle for most people to climb. After all, people like being able to move to the beat of a song. If the beat is something they’re not naturally used to (aka, something like 4/4, 3/4, or even the rare 7/4), they tend to dislike the music. It’s a totally understandable phenomenon but it’s something that I feel should be worked towards overcoming. After all, why hate something just because it “walks” a little differently?
But why this album is such a great representation of metal is because it’s essentially the heavier version of In Absentia. There are moments of absolute beauty as well as some truly aggressive attacks. But the end result is an album that is a wonderful journey. It’s one where you put it on and let each track play out in their entirety. If you can get through it all, I promise that you’ll leave a changed person. I just hope that new person liked what they experienced!
