Empty is a mildly entertaining modern Gothic Metal release that should appeal to fans of the genre. All the standard dependencies of this style of Gothic Metal are here. There are the semi-operatic female vocals, harsh male vocals, mostly mid-paced song writing, and down-tuned guitars. So what makes Leiden different? Not a heck of a lot.

Almost every band in this style from Lacuna Coil to Tristania seem to use both male and female vocals. The almost operatic style of vocalist Bérangère is very standard. The female vocals are decently performed but rarely stand out like they should. Meanwhile, the token harsh vocalist, Wilfried, is a little more successful in his delivery but in most forms of my listening media, his vocals were way too low in the mix and could barely be heard sometimes (strangely enough, in my car stereo they were louder but still a little lower than they should have been). The song writing is a little less standard but doesn’t really bring anything new to the table either. The songs are mostly mid-paced with some quick and well-placed bursts of double bass and rhythm heavy breakdowns which wouldn’t sound out of place on the latest Darkane CD. To clarify, both the guitars and bass drums play the exact same rhythm with simple or no movement on the fretboard, but with a more complicated rhythm structure due to quick quarter or half-note rests. Not a lot of Gothic Metal bands use this style of breakdown, although it’s very common place in Progressive Metal and Gothenburg influenced bands. Leiden is actually very successful in this regard and it provided for some rare head-bang worthy moments that don’t show up in Gothic Metal very often.

The main problem with this CD is that some sections and entire songs just aren’t that interesting to me. There are slight keyboards but they don’t do a whole lot and some riffs seem uninspired. Only a few memorable vocal lines occur, and when they do, they’re quite good, but they don’t show up often enough. One thing that is interesting about this band, though, is the lyrics. Three languages are used here: English, French, and German, sometimes all in the same song. I was disappointed by the German vocals though, they didn’t have the feeling or emotion I’d expect from the language, but there are nothing wrong with the French or English vocals.

Empty is not completely bad. It’s still very worthwhile to the main fans of the genres since from an overall perspective there are enough quality songs to warrant a purchase with above average vocals, quality aggressive sections (aggressive for a Gothic Metal band), and strong production from an instrument stand point. Unforunately, for casual fans there will likely be too many weak songs, mostly the first two tracks and some near the end (though one of the strongest tracks is right at the end with Vibrations, which one of the more distinct tracks on this release). The potential is there and this band is still quite young, so they’ll need to make consistency improvements if they want to play with the leaders of the genre in my opinion.