✦✦✧✧ A little more noisy than usual for Periphery, which is a welcome bit of spice. As usual, they’re at their best when they let themselves off their own chains and go djenty-heavy. Alas, the shredding material here is countered by synthwave, atmospheric frippery, or stuff I imagine is intended to be radio-friendly. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ One of Periphery’s best albums to date. Of course, as is by now mandatory for this band, I need to give you my first impressions, song by song:
“Reptile”: absolutely masterful; a new high water mark for the band; Periphery’s Catch 33
“Blood Eagle”: a fun slice of Periphery when they’re feeling their most metal; all over the radio, though, so I’m probably gonna get over it real quick. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ The first two tracks? Super strong shred. Exactly what I want from Periphery. And then the band revert to their personal blend of emo cleans and GIT-type noodling. The emo stuff sounds pretty, but lacks the emotional resonance of a similar move from TesseracT. The ship gets righted in the back half of the album, though; there’s more heaviness, and the band’s melodic side comes back in a more tempered form. See the rest here
★★★☆ Not only is the best Periphery release of 2015 (which is saying something, considering this is technically only half of the band, working under a different name), but this is the best djentish instrumental EP since Chimp Spanner’s 2012 release All Roads Lead Here. With some editing and more of a story to tell, this could have been a four-star album. See the rest here
I was listening to the new Haunted Shores EP today, and fact-checking myself on whether it was the side project of two members of Periphery. So I took a side trip to the excellent Encyclopaedia Metallum… and suddenly found myself reading a thread about the age-old question: are they metal? See the rest here
★★★☆ Everything lacking on Juggernaut: Alpha is fully evident here on Omega. It’s far more cohesive, even as it tilts from djent to late-70s prog and back. And, more importantly, it’s fucking heavy. Nice! See the rest here
★☆☆☆ This album would be a whole lot better if it showed any signs of cohesion aside from sudden transitions into new material. As such, it comes across as a lovingly engineered collection of B-sides and experiments that don’t always pay off. See the rest here
★★★☆ This little album rocks. While you can still here the sampler quality of this quiltwork EP in places, it’s still generally successful as a document of the band’s ambitions and directions, and manages to be cohesive enough to not be a total dysfunctional mess. It’s also both poppier and more metal at times that Periphery II (with standout tracks “directed” by the band’s rhythm section). See the rest here
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