I gotta be honest: I cannot for the life of me keep track of who the crap was in Periphery or Haunted Shores when. Misha Mansoor was definitely involved with Haunted Shores at some point, but I assume that involvement ceased before former Periphery vocalist Chris Baretto joined… although I don’t think that Baretto a part of that band now, though I could be wrong… and then I guess at some point current Periphery vocalist  Spencer Sotelo also did a track with Haunted Shores… and we just got a press release telling us that HS guitarist Mark Holcomb (above, with Mansoor) has joined Periphery full-time after filling in with them on their last few tours after other other guitarist Alex Bois parted ways with the band back in July, and… maybe now Bois can join Haunted Shores? And I just went cross-eyed typing all that shit. Seriously, it’s easier keeping up with who is what version of L.A. Guns than it is with who was in what version of each of these bands at what time.

I’m sure someone will try to explain it to me in the comments section, but don’t bother. The important thing is, like I said, Holcomb is the new permanent guitarist in Periphery. Or, uh, that is, he will be, following the band’s upcoming European tour with Dream Theater, because a dude named Nolly from Red Seas Fire was already slated to be on that tour. But after that! Holcomb all the way!

In all seriousness, I saw Holcomb play with the band just a few weeks ago, and he was great. So if any Periphery fans were worried about who Bois’ replacement was gonna be, they can now breathe a sigh of relief.

-AR

(TesseracT 2k11! Official photo with new vocalist Elliot Coleman.)

Yesterday the metalsphere with abuzz with the news that TesseracT had parted ways with vocalist Daniel Tompkins and had replaced him with Sky Eats Airplane / Of Legends vocalist Elliot Coleman. Instead of opting for the traditional route of announcing a band member swap with much media to-do, TesseracT just went and showed up for a gig in Milton Keynes, UK with Coleman holding the mic, didn’t say a word, and let the Internet do all the dirty work for them. Today TesseracT came out with an official announcement featuring quotes from various involved parties, but we’ve up and done you one better: an interview with bassist / main band-businessman Amos Williams.

Amos shared with us his thoughts on new vocalist Elliot Coleman, how it came to pass that Tompkins and the band parted ways, future U.S. tour plans, a new album and what the band members do when they’re not touring

Our chat after the jump. Later this week we’ll unveil Part 2 of the interview, in which we talk about… well, just wait.

Click to read more…

Still think Periphery’s Spencer Sotelo is a softee? If your gripe with him is not that his screams aren’t harsh enough but that his clean vocals are out of character for Periphery — which seemed to be the argument made by most commenters in last week’s post about his re-recorded version of “The Walk” — then the new Haunted Shores song “Passenger” featuring Sotelo on vocals probably won’t do much to change your mind.

Though I personally have no problem with Sotelo I do understand certain folks’ aversion to his particular style of cleans. Sotelo’s clean vocals on the new Haunted Shores track still sound like Sotelo’s clean vocals of yore, as likely they always will; soaring, and sure, a little emo-y in timbre. But his screams on this new track are certainly fierce, and like on the re-vocaled version of “The Walk” he definitely seems to have stepped up his growling game.

So check out the new track on Haunted Shores’ MySpace page. It comes from the band’s forthcoming album, produced by Periphery’s Misha Mansoor, which guitarist/mastermind Mark Holcomb tells us will feature a multi-singer approach with tracks performed by Jesse Leach (ex-KsE), Dan Tompkins (TesseracT), Elliot Coleman (Sky Eats Airplane), Casey Sabol (ex-Periphery), Greg Pope (Monuments) and many more. That’s quite the lineup of vocalists and I’m definitely psyched to hear it.

-VN

Last month Periphery replaced singer Chris Baretto with new guy Spencer Sotelo while Periphery-soundalikes Haunted Shores took on Baretto to fill their vacant singer slot. While Haunted Shores countered almost immediately with a new Baretto-sung track, Periphery had yet to show off Sotelo’s pipes… until now.

Periphery just posted a new version of their song “Light” featuring Sotelo’s vocals; the song had previously been available with Baretto. There’s also an album teaser featuring clips from various songs with Sotelo’s vocals on them. I don’t have Baretto’s version of “Light” on hand anywhere to cross-reference, but from memory I’d have to say that the new guy sounds a helluva lot like the old guy; he sounds damn good. But the ultimate test will be in the live setting — can Sotelo nail these notes on stage, and can he match Baretto’s energy? The last we’d want is a Scar Symmetry-like fiasco to unfold. I guess we’ll find out when Periphery open for Fear Factory on an otherwise yawn-worthy bill this Spring.

-VN

Thanks to Kris Flynn for the tip. Photo credit: David J. Reigada

Shockwaves Ripples emanated throughout the metal blogosphere last month when Sumerian young guns Periphery announced that vocalist Chris Baretto had been replaced by Spencer Sotelo. It seemed like Periphery were just getting into the groove with Baretto having been singerless for so many years, on the heels of successful Summer Slaughter and East Coast headline runs, and with their Sumerian Records debut slated for release this Spring. And not for nothin’, Baretto is a talented singer and an enthralling frontman capable of energizing any audience…. the move was a bit of a head-scratcher.

But fear not, Chris Baretto fans. Haunted Shores, an instru-metal band we featured here this past October, have tapped Baretto to fill their vacant vocalist spot.

Click to read more…

When MetalSucks correspondent Angela Gossowski interviewed recent Sumerian Records signees Periphery last month she asked them about the word “djent,” a phrase that appears on some of the band’s t-shirts (pictured above). Guitarist / band-mastermind Misha Mansoor answers thusly:

It’s basically just a guitar sound. It’s not even a word I invented, but it has become synonymous with the band. It’s something we appropriated because of the way we play our power chords. If you play guitar and you play a power chord and you use four notes… you use a big power chord and you palm mute really hard, it makes it really metallic sounding. There are some guitars and amps and pick-ups that are really conducive to that sound, which I’m a very big fan of. So I started describing things that I liked as “djenty,” because they had that characteristic. Just like you would say ‘bright,’ ‘dark,’ or whatever. It just seemed to have caught on for some reason. I actually heard the term from Meshuggah. They’re the ones who coined the term as far as I know. But for whatever reason people have been associating it with us… So if you’re in standard tuning, for all you guitar nerds out there, it would be 0-2-2-4. Or if you’re in drop tuning like we are, it would be 0-0-0-2.

So, Djent. It’s a term I’ve been hearing more and more lately as a result of the fact that it’s a sound I’ve been hearing more and more lately. It’s a staple of the Sumeriancore sound. And I can 100% get behind it! (for now). Here are a few bands that our readers have sent in that I’d definitely classic as djenty.

• Fuge - Scott Bahash sent this one in and wants us to know that it’s “just some guy from Hungary who makes some tracks at home but they blow away any progressive/djenty bands.”
• CiLiCe – Sent in by BTK 666. “Better than Tesseract??” he asks. Maybe so.
• Haunted Shores – The instrumental tracks up on this band’s MySpace page were actually produced and mixed by Mr. Misha Mansoor himself. They sound damn fine, and damn djenty.

Djent djent djent!

-VN