Periphery

Piqaia – Artifact Review

Piqaia – Artifact Review

“Over the past few years, Copenhagen’s most gruesome residents have established one of the world’s most fetid death metal breeding grounds, with acts like Phrenelith, Undergang, and Taphos garnering global attention. But with one look at the album art — say nothing of the band photo — you’ll recognize that we’re not going to hear from that ilk today. Instead, Piqia forces us to consider the lighter side of the city’s metal scene.” Pastels and prog.

The Dead Centuries – Race Against Time Review

The Dead Centuries – Race Against Time Review

“The much-maligned genre of djent seems to be undergoing a change as of late. It’s becoming more diffuse, more rarely a goal unto itself and more often part of the progressive metal vocabulary. This is a good thing because distilled djent commonly boils down to an exercise in making technical prowess sound as dull as possible. As an ingredient, rather than a meal, it can be used to contrast intense guitar sweeping, as a deliberately unsteady base or a breather passage.” Season sparingly.

Toothgrinder – Phantom Amour Review

Toothgrinder – Phantom Amour Review

“Full disclosure: I took this review on fully expecting to hate this album. Readers may remember I already felt lukewarm about Toothgrinder’s 2016 debut Nocturnal Masquerade, whose poppier and less technical take on The Dillinger Escape Plan was bogged down by repetitive ideas and too many generic radio rock choruses. As the New Jersey quintet’s sharp hardcore riffing seemed to be the best thing about Masquerade, I ultimately concluded the band needed to get heavier, slapped it with a 3.0, and went back to eating Chinese food and jerking off.” Too much disclosure.

Threat Signal – Disconnect Review

Threat Signal – Disconnect Review

“Five years ago, another metal blog referred to As I Lay Dying’s Awakened as “the world’s first retro-metalcore album.” While that same not-to-be-named blog was also recently guilty of authoring one of the most idiotic self-serving shitposts I’ve ever read, in the case of Awakened they were actually right. With its melodic Gothenburg riffs, gang vocals, soaring clean choruses, and pummeling breakdowns, the record hearkened back to mid-00s metalcore at a time when the rest of the scene was too busy being balls deep in whatever Periphery was doing.” Old core, new core. At this point, what does it matter?

Hollow – Home Is Not Where the Heart Is Review

Hollow – Home Is Not Where the Heart Is Review

“A funny thing happened to metalcore in the last six years or so. After the Killswitch Engages and As I Lay Dyings of the world spent years churning out Gothenburg riffs and tough-guy breakdowns like cheap beers at a frat party, metalcore bands finally listened to Periphery and started latching on to this new thing called ‘djent.'” Metalcore through the ages.

Bear – /// Review

Bear – /// Review

“While I’m quite comfortable in the realm of technical death metal, the whole European tech-metal/djent boom around 2010 never really made sense to me. Where did all of these bands come from, and why did so many sound like even shittier versions of Periphery? Regardless of the source, I can intuit from the number of stupidly named festivals that the continental metalheads keep holding that tech metal — without the death — is pretty popular somewhere.” The claws are out.

Semper – Kháos Review

Semper – Kháos Review

“Repeat after me: Djent is not a dirty word. It certainly appears that way with the general consensus in the metal community of the often maligned offshoot sub-genre of progressive metal. The potential is definitely there for bands to take the basic template of the djent formula and manipulate the components in a myriad of interesting and innovative ways, yet the quality bands able to do this effectively appear few and far between.” Semper fi, or semper die, there is no semper try.

Behind the Sun – Post Solis Review

Behind the Sun – Post Solis Review

“We live in an age where trends tend to follow a very specific curve thanks to high-speed propagation and market saturation. Djent is no exception. The first stage is inception. A creator comes up with an idea, shares it, and becomes ground zero. Sometimes this is subtle and hard to trace back, sometimes it’s Meshuggah.” Consult the Djent Timeline if you will.

Ghost Iris – Blind World Review

Ghost Iris – Blind World Review

“To me, there’s no music genre entirely without merit. Hardcore? Give me some Counterparts, please. Hip hop? Aesop Rock is my jam. Emo? I’ll rock out to Taking Back Sunday like it’s 2005 and I need something playing in the background while I apply eyeliner for my Myspace profile pic. Djent? Now that’s a tricky one.” Go easy on the guyliner, Z.