REVIEW: Periphery – Periphery II: This Time It’s Personal

July 9th, 2012

Adrian Garza

Artist: Periphery
Album: Periphery II: This Time It’s Personal
Genre: Progressive Metal
Label: Sumerian

Periphery II clocks in at whopping 70 minutes, and perfectly uses every single one of those seconds to wow both fans and naysayers alike. Fully embracing the many genres that could be used to describe the band’s music, Periphery has ambitiously crafted an album that could impress an audience of any kind. Fueled and powered by multi-layered assault of guitars that use only the thickest of strings, along with a live-orchestra, this record is already among my favorite technically-minded albums of 2012.

Behind every guttural growl and fervent scale-dominating croon, vocalist Spencer Sotelo demonstrates just why his band has reached their level of success. You can clearly hear it. At some moments, he’ll come off like a young and aspiring newbie giving his own spin to an old concept, while at others, he’ll sound like a seasoned veteran going through another day at the office.

If I had to describe what I thought Periphery’s method of writing an album would look like, I assume that Periphery toys around with their within a futuristic soundscape to create something that manages to come off as both adventurous and brutal simultaneously. While on the subject of songwriting, a common question that I’ve asked myself on multiple occasions has been “are long songs really necessary?” I mean, they’re great when done thematically and emotionally, but sometimes they just seem forced and insincere. With all of that said, the album’s long songs were fully worth the while, through pulling all of the stops with various instruments and effects that made each song into it’s own entity.

What is there to really say about this record that is still unsaid by the masses? Of course this album is “heavy enough”, but would the typical metal musician understand and dig this record? Perhaps. As lame as it is to proclaim in a review, this album really does have “more of everything” when looking at it from the lighter/heavier aspect. This really is one of those you have to actually give it a listen in order to understand just exactly what is going on inside of the beautiful chaos that is Periphery II.

Rating: 9/10
Reviewed by Adrian Garza