PERIPHERY - Periphery II This Time It's Personal

They say about Periphery that they are the initiators of that subgenre of progressive metal referred to as djent, mentioned here when we spoke of TesseracT and Animals As Leaders. Like these bands, Periphery’s music revolves a lot around Meshuggah and Textures, with all sorts of influences, from Between the Buried & Me to Dream Theater, and even Linkin Park or Bring Me the Horizon.

Periphery II: This Time It's Personal is their second album; their line-up is full of exceptional musicians, and they create a perfect mix of melody, aggressiveness and instrumental technique. The result is a perfectly balanced record. Everything is done with temperance and good taste, without abusing any of the three elements. One thing I like is the synthesizer, appearing quite often and giving particular colour and personality to the 14 tracks.

And if all that wasn’t enough, there are three notable guests on this record, and one of them is quite unexpected: John Petrucci (Dream Theater) – with a fabulous guitar solo on Erised. You can hear Guthrie Govan on Have a Blast, a guitarist currently playing in The Aristocrats (jazz rock/fusion band), who even appeared on two Asia albums (Aura and Silent Nation). Finally, on Mile Zero we have Wes Hauch as guest, one of the guitarists from The Faceless, a tech death metal band.

Besides Erised, I also love its continuation - Epoch, a superb synth-only song. Muramasa/Have A Blast, Ragnarok and The Gods Must Be Crazy! are also tunes that caught me from the first listen, and in turn I would recommend them to anyone who has yet to hear this amazing album. Even so, it’s hard to overlook Masamune or Make Total Destroy (the latter also has a video).

The year 2012 has been referred to as a lot of things: “year of the Apocalypse”, “year of the Dragon”, “European year of active aging”. We can now also say that 2012 is the “year of Periphery”. And by that I don’t mean the incredible value of this material, but I am astounded to hear that we are due another studio release by Periphery this year, or so the rumours would have it. So, people, brace yourselves!!!

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