IF PERIPHERY DON’T BECOME HUGE ROCKSTARS IN 2010 THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE METAL WORLD

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 11:00am by

peripheryI went to the MetalSucks co-sponsored Thrash & Burn Tour last night. Show highlight: Periphery, easily, no contest.

Periphery have been “Internet popular” for years. I first wrote about them over a year ago as a band for fans of Meshuggah, Sikth, Textures, etc. At the time they were looking for a singer but apparently they’ve found one, the tremendously talented NYC-native Chris Barretto, who pretty much dropped my jaw to the floor last night with both his vocal skills and stage performance. Periphery were absolutely just virgin fucking tight and had the crowd in a frenzy, no small feat for the 2nd band on a 10-or-so band bill. I’m very happy for Periphery that they landed this Thrash & Burn slot and can begin the long journey from “Internet popular” to “actually popular.” They totally deserve it.

So, why aren’t Periphery signed to Sumerian Records yet? Beats me; after all they are the very epitomy of Sumeriancore, our favorite new micro-genre. Count down on that shit… 3… 2… 1…

Check out Periphery on MySpace. Don’t let that auto-tune in the opening of the first song fool you.

-VN

  • http://myspace.com/whitearmsofathena Josh

    I didn’t like him at first, but then I realized I was just being a pussy

  • kid

    i missed most of there set in pa cuz i had the munchies so bad but there last song sounded tight i was mad that i missed that shit

  • Canvas Of Flesh

    What wrong with the metal world is that bands like these do get signed.

    • Jewers

      this guys favorite bands: Corpse Infection, Violated Septum, Cannibalistic Masturbation, and Vomit Crucifix

      you know…all bands that are very different from one another.

      • Ziltoid

        No, Canvas of Flesh is absolutely correct. Bands like this ruin metal.

      • Canvas Of Flesh

        The original singer of Drowning Pool was a big fan of Absu. That doesn’t make his music any less shitty. I don’t care if Miley Cyrus listens to Burzum, her music still fucking sucks.

        • Kill All

          because burzum fucking sucks

      • gunshow86de

        Gotta love death-metal fans hating on “sound-a-like” bands. Hello kettle, it’s pot, what color am I again?

  • http://infinitybasement.wordpress.com billybob

    I want a Periphery album.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Andrew-Zink/1457523384 Andrew Zink

    They signed to Sumerian last week, dude.

  • Lord Bling

    Not bad, although it’s a little too much like early Meshuggah with clean vocals. I’d give an album a spin though.

  • seveword

    Stop saying Sumeriancore.

  • Richard

    Can’t wait for the album. I’ve loved these guys since I first heard them four months ago.

  • Elpants

    Of all the Meshuggah rip-offs. Periphery are hands down, the worst.

  • Greywhind

    You know, I love Meshuggah, and I think these guys definitely have their good moments (The Walk shows some potential), but I’m just not that impressed. Their riffs don’t seem to be terribly inspired, for one.

    More importantly, they don’t seem to understand the art of using clean vocals. Some bands, like Gojira and God Forbid, use clean vocals right: as a natural element of the song, a jazzy addition to a heavy sound. These guys tend to use them either too much or not at all, and their style is the kind of whiny, high-pitched, predictable one of most generic clean/growled vocal mixes. The lyrics also failed to catch my attention, lacking the strange, poetic brilliance of bands like Meshuggah and Gojira.

    In other words, these guys have some elements that are good, but other sections of their music just don’t quite do it for me.

  • West Virginia

    Seriously?

    Never heard these guys before so I cheked them out. And well….boring as hell.

    Messugah just needs to release another album to counter ballance all these clones.

  • TommyLindbergsen

    What do you get when you cross Avenged Sevenfold-like vocals and Meshuggah?
    This shitty crossover abomination.

  • Ziltoid

    This band sounds like As I Lay Dying mixed some other shit band (Atreyu maybe?) trying to be Meshuggah. Needless to say, it’s awful. I can see why it would fit in with Sumerian, though. Besides The Faceless, Sumerian has nothing but crap.

    • Z

      As I Lay Dying? Haha. You’re and idiot.

  • bill

    ya, periphery owns.

  • kazz

    I’ve been myspace friends with this band for awhile now, a year or so i’d guess. And fwiw, they took their best song down some time ago, imo. It was recorded with the previous vocalist and i can’t remember what its called. But anyway, I was truly excited about this band for a time, but for whatever reason, I can’t say that any more. They sound a bit stale to me now. So yeah, there are some good elements in their sound, but not much is truly exciting.

    • http://www.myspace.com/thescienceofsleepar Eli

      Icarus Lives w/ Casey Sabol

      • kazz

        I believe you win

  • Fufkin

    THESE GUYS BLOW DICKS

  • Rage

    Terrible.

    This is rise against with some sort of teenager screaming.

    Get the fuck out of my face.

  • Cink

    I wouldn’t be so hasty to toss these guys aside just yet. Their sound is kind of unique.

    Even though I agree, The Faceless is the only good band coming from Sumerian Records.

  • Matt

    that’s not autotune in the beginning that’s just an effect on the vocals to make it sound digital, it’s not at all affecting the tuning of the notes

  • http://spinelanguage.wordpress.com/ spinelanguage

    These guys have been at it for a long time now and deserve some recognition, if not for their music then at least for their chops. They were “Sumeriancore” or whatever the fuck you want to call it (honestly I think they’re something a little different) before a lot of others were.

    My interview with the band: http://spinelanguage.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/10-questions-with-periphery/

    And their lead guitarist/mastermind misha mansoor (a.k.a. bulb): http://spinelanguage.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/10-questions-with-bulb/

  • The Great Danton

    Why does a band get compared to Meshuggah whenever it has a remotely complex rhythm? I mean by that that logic, all bands that use multiple time signatures are rip-offs of Rush.

  • Strapping Young Lad

    This band is absolutely amazing. Been listening to them for over a year now and they blow me away everytime! And although i do miss Casey as their singer, Chris has an amazing voice as well. One of the more unique metal bands around today.

  • Fong Chung

    Yeah this band is from my area, I saw them open for Between The Buried and Me and Giant once. Needless to say I didn’t give a shit about them. They tried to be “bros” with me, and I was trying to flee for my life. Besides their old vocalist, was a part singer for Divine Hersey lol.

  • Fong Chung

    part time*

  • trav

    Absolutely horrible. Good job.

  • Strapping Young Lad

    never ever thought i would see haters for these guys. They’re fucking incredible. and comparing their vocals to Avenged Sevenfold?? Come on now, Chris is damn talented.

  • Tommy Lindbergsen

    Yeah, the vocals are talented if you like sissy whining dick suckery.

    • Strapping Young Lad

      nice one.

  • PD

    Been loving that instrumental Ow My Feelings for months now… Sounds a lot like TesseracT’s Concealing Fate, minus the vocals.

  • shreddies

    Periphery fucking shred.

  • Noel

    bands should get attention if they have something new to the table. these guys are a good band, but they bring NOTHING new. frankly, this meshuggah rip off frenzy HAS to end. its cool when the shugg does it, not 10000 other bands. these guys found a trend, jumped on it, perfected it, and got away with it. just goes to show even theives can get signed…of course, thats nothing new…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Abhimanyu-Ghoshal/517045654 Abhimanyu Ghoshal

    I’m loving their sound! And now they even have a nifty MJ cover! That officially puts them in my list of faves!

  • DonnaWanna

    Question: If you could change the things you don’t like about their music what would you do differently?

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/agmkreptile FuckYourGayEmoHaircut

    can someone explain to me EXACTLY what sumeriancore is?

  • Ozy

    Been listening to Periphery (or Bulb) since late 04. His sound has definitely developed over the past 5 years since the Oxisius, Soul Crush, Ntl days and it’s good to see his band finally getting ‘big’.

  • Benito

    The number of internet hater’s absolutely blows my mind.

    Just because they use poly rhythms they’re automatically a meshuggah rip off? Wake the Fuck up, and stop hating on a band that deserves some fucking credit.

    go to soundclick.com and search for “Bulb”, it’s the guitarist’s personal page. He’s and extremely talented and dedicated guitarist, and if that isn’t metal, then your head is up your ass.

    • Strapping Young Lad

      Benito, thank you. I wish more people were more open minded like you and didn’t instantly assumed a band was “gay” because they have clean vocals or assume they’re a meshuggah rip off because of poly rhythms. Periphery, keep on doing what you guys do. A very talented bunch they are.

      • erik

        yes, very yes

        besides Meshuggah’s imagery is whack

        Bleed’s music video looks like a fuckin Marylin Manson rip off

  • PorkGrinder

    When I first heard this band, I kind of liked it….but that was when they had Casey still with them. The new guy doesn’t even come close to the skill that Casey had. He’s obviously trying to hard. He’s not a bad singer, but I’m not too sure he’s right for this band. BTW, he came from another band called Lamps Burning (which is worth checking out), that in my opinion suited him better. And there wasn’t any whiny vocals there. He should’ve stayed there…at least they’re a lil bit more original then the many Meshuggah copycats out there, including Periphery.

  • Plug

    I would personally like to hear each one of you whiney bitches who say they are shit try to write a song like Periphery does, aside from being stupidly tight these guys hands down are creating some of the finest metal about at the moment. Meshuggah happened to create a whole new genre of music, but i dont see you guys bashing thousands of thrash bands for sounding like Metallica? Or bands that sound like In Flames or Dark Tranquillity. End of the day when you guys manage to develop a huge fan base towards your music, i will listen to what you have to say. Until then keep quiet :)

    • Strapping Young Lad

      boosh.

  • Quintupple

    To be entirely fair, anytime a band like Periphery gets slandered as a Meshuggah-ripoff, it does nothing short of show a lack of understanding of the music, and the theoretical elements that these bands use. Fact of the matter is that once you actually begin to understand it, and disect it, it is actually nothing like Meshuggah.

    It isn’t bands that ruin good music, it’s elitist attitudes and closed mindedness, so stop whining, and instead of writing music off on things you dislike, try listening for something in a piece of music that you DO like and love it for that.

    • Strapping Young Lad

      i heard that, sista!!

  • curmudgeon

    Haters hate. Let them be who they are.

    From the first time I heard these guys, I for one thought these guys were the first fresh thing I’d heard in metal since I was a teenager, which is now a shamefully long time ago. Seriously folks, we got almost all the way through this decade without a single band from anywhere pushing anything that remotely resembled a ‘new’ sound. Meshuggah — love them or hate them — was one of the last. On the local or national level, 97% some-odd percent of metal bands are running around in circles trying absurdly hard to copy each other’s sounds. Every vocalist is another one of the thousands of low pitched “bee-bee-bee-bee” guys, or high pitched “yah-yah-yah-yah” guys. If we’re *really* lucky, we’ll get a guy/gal who does both, but nothing else. Be still, my beating heart.

    If you don’t like them, don’t listen to them. It’s as simple as that.

  • Dave

    What a suprise, this article was written by the exact same fucktard who wrote a review completely slating Fellsilent. Kinda shows you just how much he actually knows about good music, what a tosser.

  • lol

    Oh lawd, they got signed to sumerian