Style: Progressive metal, stoner metal, post-metal, grunge (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Mastodon, Alice in Chains, Baroness, Anciients
Country: Belgium
Release date: 1 August 2026

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Prog is a genre prone to excess and technicality. Many an artist will attempt to wow you with fingerprint-scorching shred, mind-bending polyrhythms, and octopus-like kit mastery. What sometimes gets forgotten is the tried-and-tested ‘simple and effective’ approach. That might sound like an insult in the prog scene, but there’s an art to perfecting your craft at any level. Despite what Yngwie Malmsteen wants you to believe, less really can be more.   

Belgian fourpiece Left Eye Perspective come from the Mastodonian tradition but with notes of grunge and stoner metal suffusing their style. Riffs vary from proggy intricacy to more languid chord-based affairs, while frontman Kristof Loockx’s reedy delivery recalls the late Brent Hinds, Jerry Cantrell, and, most of all, Stephen Brodsky (Cave In, Mutoid Man). Speaking of Cantrell, the lead guitar style, and some riffs, owe as much to Alice in Chains as they do the southern sludge of Mastodon, trading the shreddier inclinations of prog for more emotive and melodic leadwork, as well as a punchier riffing style—Horizons won’t melt your face so much as just slap it.  

The inherent riffiness of Horizons is soon heard on tracks like “Wail and Howl” with its somewhat thrashy opening and chaotic outro of tremolo with interspersions of dissonant chords. “From the Remnants” borrows from both Dirt and Crack the Skye with a Cantrell-esque intro solo and Alice in Chains style aaaahhhhs but with more complex riffs that drink deeply from the Hinds/Kelliher dynamic, and a mid-section that feels it came straight from the Crack the Skye sessions. “Velvet Sky” might be the best, and proggiest, track, with an irrepressible sense of groove propelling it through a number of great riffs into the most epic moment on the album as eerie intervals and long, lamenting lead notes accompany the bereft bellows of Loockx: ‘where is the light? / where is the light that shines on us?’ 

Judiciously chosen harsh vocal sections break up the songs somewhat, which is just as well because, while Loockx is a perfectly decent vocalist, the mix is a little meek with him. After some time with him you can’t help that a better production job would lend him a bit more reverb or richness to really cement his performance—when the band do utilise some vocal effects, it’s for a watery effect on both parts of “Test of Time” that is more distracting than it is compelling. Indeed, if Horizons has a drawback it’s that you can consistently see how a slightly more polished production job could give everything a bit more bite; as it is, the drums are rendered a little inert, and there’s a sense of cinema that’s perhaps a little absent from the general vibe. 

But, that’s a small quibble when there’s so much to enjoy. From the bouncy pull-off riff of headbanger “Repentance” to the rather tasty drumming on “Test of Time, Pt 2: Finding Utopia”, Left Eye Perspective manage to balance music that’s immediate and striking with subtly complex composition and consistently expressive playing. If not every song hits—and I confess the “Test of Time” duo don’t really stick with me, despite cool moments in both, and doomy “Ruins” is a bit low-energy for an opener—the ones that do hit more than make up for it.

Some albums are grand epics, others just bust out a bunch of sick riffs and then leave. Horizons is, when it comes down to it, a fun forty-three minutes to engage the groove-centres of your brain. On their sophomore, Left Eye Perspective have synthesised grunge, stoner metal, and progressive metal with a punchy approach to composition that feels very much their own. And while the group still have room to grow, what they achieve seems to be exactly what they set out to do, and surprisingly few bands can say that.

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Recommended tracks: Velvet Sky, From the Remnants, Repentance
You may also like: Witch Ripper, Calyces, Cobra the Impaler
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: independent

Left Eye Perspective is:
– Jelle de Bock (bass) 
– Tony Goetheyn (drums)
– Kim Berghe (guitars)
– Kristof Loockx (vocals, guitars)