Periphery - Juggernaut: Alpha & Omega

They've definitely refined their style here, but I don't find it as enjoyable as their previous releases...there's just not enough...feels.

"MK Ultra", "22 Faces", "Rainbow Gravity", and "Four Lights" are pretty sterile tracks for these guys. "Hell Below" is an unusually heavy approach for Periphery with respect to the production, but the songwriting falls short *points at awkward transition to jazzy interlude*.

Production, vocals, and songwriting took a big step in the wrong direction. Too much pop. There are a handful of good songs to be found though.

Amazing performance. One of the best albums I've ever listened to.

It started great but it gets a bit boring after so many songs.

I'm a bit of a fanboy so this could be slightly overrated but I'll leave it here after about a dozen listens. Excellent album and much more progressive than their previous efforts. I was scared when they released "The Bad Thing" as the first single (prolly the "worst" track IMO) but it turns out they just trolled us again. Excellent album full of jazz influence and saucey developments. Whether you like Spencer's voice or not you gotta admire the range and ballsiness it takes to full voice some of this stuff.

Saw them last night at The Fillmore - awesome! I hugely rocked out like a complete idiot to The Scourge. New tracks sounded great live.

Written by Susan on 28.01.2015 at 03:44

Saw them last night at The Fillmore - awesome! I hugely rocked out like a complete idiot to The Scourge. New tracks sounded great live.

Great! Were Spencers alternations between cleans and screams/growls immaculate or terrible compared to the record? or was it moderately fair enough not to distract you as you were rocking out to the tunes?

Written by flightoficarus on 26.01.2015 at 17:21

It's out today. Here comes the stream of premature 10's...

Haha. Well, in this particular case, it would be like splitting hairs to call the user 10's premature given the staff's critical rating is almost there.

Written by AssailantForce on 28.01.2015 at 20:06

Written by Susan on 28.01.2015 at 03:44

Saw them last night at The Fillmore - awesome! I hugely rocked out like a complete idiot to The Scourge. New tracks sounded great live.

Great! Were Spencers alternations between cleans and screams/growls immaculate or terrible compared to the record? or was it moderately fair enough not to distract you as you were rocking out to the tunes?

His transitions were excellent! In fact, all of his vocals seemed very easy, despite his being completely amped up for the show. It's easy to push your vocals in that situation and while he was certainly pushing his energy and his body, his vocals stayed on point. Very impressed with that. Concert review in the works; he'll definitely be praised for that.

Written by Susan on 28.01.2015 at 20:56


His transitions were excellent! In fact, all of his vocals seemed very easy, despite his being completely amped up for the show. It's easy to push your vocals in that situation and while he was certainly pushing his energy and his body, his vocals stayed on point. Very impressed with that. Concert review in the works; he'll definitely be praised for that.

That's nice to know The alternating style vocals like the ones by Sotelo and relevant for a number of prog, metalcore, melodic death acts are more difficult to perform consistently, relative to a singular style. It's quite evident when even larger acts, for example, Trivium's or All that remain's front-men sound ametuerish & off in almost any recording i've seen online. Mikael Åkerfeldt is the only beautiful exception I experienced so far.

Written by AssailantForce on 28.01.2015 at 22:03

Written by Susan on 28.01.2015 at 20:56


His transitions were excellent! In fact, all of his vocals seemed very easy, despite his being completely amped up for the show. It's easy to push your vocals in that situation and while he was certainly pushing his energy and his body, his vocals stayed on point. Very impressed with that. Concert review in the works; he'll definitely be praised for that.

That's nice to know The alternating style vocals like the ones by Sotelo and relevant for a number of prog, metalcore, melodic death acts are more difficult to perform consistently, relative to a singular style. It's quite evident when even larger acts, for example, Trivium's or All that remain's front-men sound ametuerish & off in almost any recording i've seen online. Mikael Åkerfeldt is the only beautiful exception I experienced so far.

Dude that is so true. I hate falling in love with some vocals on the record only to hear them butchered live. I haven't heard Trivium or All That Remains LIVE but can attest to Akerfeldt's skills - and I'm not at all an Opeth fan If you're into power metal, I was especially impressed with Sonata Arctica's Tony Kakko. Live he sounded just like the CD; it was years ago that I saw them but I still remember him and the whole band performing quite well. Shit, if it wasn't such a small club, allowing me to be quite close, I would have thought they were miming while the CD played

Sotelo and the rest of Periphery can be in that class. While this theatre didn't have as great of sound, the performances were still clearly top notch.

Written by Susan on 28.01.2015 at 22:27


Dude that is so true. I hate falling in love with some vocals on the record only to hear them butchered live. I haven't heard Trivium or All That Remains LIVE but can attest to Akerfeldt's skills - and I'm not at all an Opeth fan If you're into power metal, I was especially impressed with Sonata Arctica's Tony Kakko. Live he sounded just like the CD; it was years ago that I saw them but I still remember him and the whole band performing quite well. Shit, if it wasn't such a small club, allowing me to be quite close, I would have thought they were miming while the CD played

Sotelo and the rest of Periphery can be in that class. While this theatre didn't have as great of sound, the performances were still clearly top notch.

Haha exactly how I felt about them to be honest. And yes Akerfeldt is truly a class apart as a performer. That's nice ! Can't say I'm into a lot of power metal, I do dig some Blind Gaurdian. That's really killer! Can't say I've heard a lot of Sonata Arctica, but the vocals surely seem sweet.

That's nice to know. It's definitely a feather in their cap if they pull those vocals right live.

Don't really have any intentions of listening to this, but I went to HMV yesterday and if you wanted a physical copy of it you have to buy the 2 albums separately which were like $17.99 and I think $15.99 ($34 +tax). Not sure why they couldn't have just put 2 discs in the same case and made it cost 20 bucks (even that's a bit steep for a CD). Seems ripoff-y.

I like "Alpha" song!

One thing I love about these guys is their logo. It's awesome. The music, so-so. Enjoyable.

Really difficult album to properly judge. On the one hand, all these djent/math bands (I've kinda started mentally calling them 'new prog' because it seems to be something of a collective movement) always come across as all technique and flash and pleasant-sounding stuff with a complete lack of hooks or anything engaging, and the poppier/more mainstream metal inclinations here offer up a lot more personally involving and enjoyable moments than most/all other similar bands have managed. At the same time, the simplified instrumental side combined with the half-mainstream-esque sound of it does feel slightly indecisive and caught in two minds between being a technical proggy heavy-hitting band and a catchy melodic one. It's rather enjoyable, and considering that I've totally failed to revisit their other albums I might actually come back to at least some of the songs on here, however it's certainly a flawed effort.

I've been pretty enamored with these releases since I've gotten my hands on them. Periphery really has managed to create a sound that is as engaging musically as it is emotionally which I feel can be heard to pull off. Additionally, the variety in the sounds and moods themselves is pretty stunning - from the jazzy moments to the neck-breaking ones (the end of Graveless gets me each and every time), there is just so much to absorb that the albums never become tiresome or banal.

So far, I'd say this is the only "10" album that I own, haha, but I am just starting a collection so that may change over time ... we'll see.

I know Periphery is everyone's favorite love-to-hate-them band but still, all these months later, this is still my album of the year. Just over two months left for someone to top it. As of today, there is no question.

Periphery's vocals have always made it difficult for me to like them. In every other aspect, I consider them a pretty good band, and I'd probably bump this up to an 8 were it not for the vocals. In fact, if they had a different vocalist, I would probably listen to them a lot more and get deep enough into their music that I'd rate it even higher. For now, though, it's a solid album.

Very good, I enjoy Sotelo's vocals, and the guitar is much better on this than the debut. P2 was hard for me to get into, I didn't very much enjoy it. The first half Juggernaut is much better imo, but overall the good songs are Heavy Heart, Alpha, The Bad Thing, Priestless, and Omega.