Periphery - Juggernaut: Alpha (2015)
I think early 2014 was when I dropped off of the Periphery-train. Don't get me wrong, I really liked "Clear" but I was hearing so much other music that I had pretty much gotten out of metal of any kind, preferring to stay with the old "classics" in my library than to actively seek out anything else. I even told a female friend of mine, while we were riding in the car, "yeah, metal just doesn't really interest me anymore, it's really just gotten too edgy for me, but I guess I'll always check out stuff from Cattle Decapitation and Pig Destroye-" and she cut me off by laughing at the top of her lungs at just how fucking ridiculous that sounded, especially because I had said it without a single hint of irony. This was also the day that we blared some Linkin Park song off of "Meteora" and I was screaming DJ Khaled tags in the backseat to the song. Sometimes I can be fun to be around, y'know? Unfortunately, that was not one of those times.
The first time I had ever heard this album, I was staying behind-the-counter at a motel while the owner was gone, and, just so you know, the couch was fucking terrible. It was awful to sleep on, but that's besides the fact: I honestly didn't care about this album the first time I had listened to it, and brushed it off for a long while like "Eh, Periphery just ain't my cup of tea anymore, I guess" but I recently dusted off my MP3s to give this album another try, and I know what you're saying "B-BUT IT'S A DOUBLE ALBUM!! YOU GOTTA LISTEN TO THE SECOND ONE WITH IT FOR FULL CONTEXT!!" and yes, I plan on doing that, but here's the thing: The albums were NOT packaged together, and were sold as singular CDs, so fuck you, I'm listening to and reviewing each one by themselves and there ain't a Goddamn thing you can fucking tell me about how to live my fucking life, alright? Unless you're pointing a finger at a microwave pizza I just made and point out "WAIT, THAT'S THE MICROWAVE PIZZA I POURED ALL OF MY SPARE BATTERY ACID ON!! DON'T EAT THAT!!" then don't fucking say anything.
The first thing I noticed when returning to this album is that the production seems a bit better than before, at least to my ears. The riffs sound a lot more.. Warm, I guess is what I want to say. The music on this album kinda seems less complicated to me than previous albums, but don't get me wrong, this is still some quality shit that I couldn't ever dream of playing, but it seems to fall into some riffs that sound oddly like Meshuggah's "Lethargica", which, yeah, you can sit there and be like the average MetalSucks comment section, saying "HAHA THEY'RE A MESHUGGAH CLONE" like that insult holds any weight in 2017, but fuck the hell off, I'm talking about -that- song in particular. Regardless, the production is pretty great, and the instrumentals are still great, but I feel like they were having a bit of a problem with making memorable riffs this time around, with some of the most memorable riffs coming from songs that Misha 'Bulb' Mansoor had been sitting on demos of since the SoundClick days, which is concerning, but at the same time, when you have a vocalist -this- fucking great, it doesn't matter that much.
Something that's pretty curious about a lot of reviews for this album is that they say it's Periphery's most accessible to date (at least at the time of writing) and I just don't even agree with that slightly. Sure, there's a -huge- focus on clean vocals this time around, with screams being used a lot more sparingly, which, yeah, your enjoyment of that is strictly up to personal preference, not really a mistake/good choice by them either way, but I'd say the songs are a lot harder to initially digest than, say, "Periphery II: This Time It's Personal" which were complicated but also had a habit of falling into traditional song structuring, which worked to Periphery's benefit on that album, coming off of the more progressive, epic feeling of their debut album, but this album seems to be -right- in between of those two vibes, having catchy bits but also feeling like it's actually progressing from point A to point B, even in its most catchy moments, such as the title track. The only way I could see this being the most accessible Periphery album is if you don't really like harsh vocals, and if you don't, you're still getting a fair bit of them on this album, so I don't really know just how much enjoyment a metal fan who "hates that screamo shit" would get out of this album.
Minor grievances aside, I think this is a great album, but if you're anything like me, it takes a while for it to really open itself up to you. It took me three full listens before I even really liked it, and I know a lot of people aren't going to be willing to do that, which sucks, but yeah, Periphery did it for me again, and I'm glad for that. I've been told that "Juggernaut: Omega" is more chaotic, but we'll have to see about that. All I know right now is that Spencer Sotelo is a top 5 vocalist, these are catchy songs, the riffs crush, all is well and nothing can be ill except for the Beastie Boys. Did you know that the Beastie Boys are actually commonly credited with coining the term "mullet"? Yeah, believe it or not, they didn't just fight for your right to party, but they named your alcoholic uncle's haircut as well. Beastie Boys' influence on the music world and the terrible hair world cannot be denied, for it is monolithic.. I guess you could call them juggernauts as well.
8/10
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