Periphery - Periphery II: This Time It’s Personal (Album Review)
Tuesday, 03 July 2012
Written by Ben Bland
Periphery have always, and no doubt will always, be something of a love/hate band. Their brand of ‘djent’ is guilty of featuring all the clichés of the ‘genre’ alongside even more bombastic segments reminiscent of prog metal titans Dream Theater. Perhaps it would be fair to think of them as a bit like Protest the Hero…except a Protest the Hero that seemed determined to make themselves as hard to like as possible.
Seriously, what is it with this band? 'This Time it’s Personal' takes the biscuit as a cheesy album subtitle, and the fact that this album features three ‘guest guitar solos’ gives a good impression of how unnecessarily obsessive this album is over immensely complicated fretwork. Perhaps Periphery just cannot help themselves. After all, they are insanely talented. The guitar solo in album centrepiece 'Luck as a Constant' alone would probably take most players several weeks at least to master. The problem is that this talent is too rarely used interestingly, and too often becomes overbearing.
It would be unfair to call this record boring. There is plenty going on here. However, it would be fair to say that things have a tendency to blend together over the course of the entire record. The chugging riffs may seduce technical guitar masters, but everyone else will probably just be waiting for the next hook, and sometimes they are far too far apart. The vocals, courtesy of Spencer Sotelo, are likely to send as many people reaching for the mute button as they are to the volume increase controls. His growls somehow manage to sound polished but unconvincing whilst his clean vocals are perhaps a little too saccharine sweet for their own good.
The best thing about this album is when the band reel things back a little and become more atmospheric. Some of the backing electronics and chiming guitar parts showcase that, when they put their mind to it, this band can be great composers as well as great performers. Too many times, though, they fall into the same trap of infuriating overplaying their instruments. This is a great shame, as Periphery probably have a fantastic album in them somewhere. Here though, they are nothing if not average.
'Periphery II' is out on 16th July via Century Media.
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Seriously, what is it with this band? 'This Time it’s Personal' takes the biscuit as a cheesy album subtitle, and the fact that this album features three ‘guest guitar solos’ gives a good impression of how unnecessarily obsessive this album is over immensely complicated fretwork. Perhaps Periphery just cannot help themselves. After all, they are insanely talented. The guitar solo in album centrepiece 'Luck as a Constant' alone would probably take most players several weeks at least to master. The problem is that this talent is too rarely used interestingly, and too often becomes overbearing.
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