For a band who like to play it complex, Periphery’s 8th album A Pale White Dot gets off to a rather inauspicious start. At least that is until opening track ‘Obsession’ bursts into life in full on nu-prog metal glory. It’s bright, shiny and hits you right in the jaw with its surface glean. Periphery are back and making a statement.
It’s not too long before their prog tendencies start to show through though, and ‘Talk’ is a great mixture of modern metal and frantic chord changes and jazz complexities (hey, I’m no musician, I just write this shit). Drifting off on tangents, they manage to cram a whole lot into its five minutes, yet retain the emotional impact via the excellent vocals which range from heartfelt clean singing, to full on screams.
‘Mr. God’ is a rage filled slab of stabbing riffs, and distorted vocals, relentless in its delivery. Less straightforward is ‘Heaven On High’ which twists and turns down its various avenues of emotional highs and rage to a backbeat of technical prog, led by some rather fantastic drumming. Indeed, the musicianship throughout is exemplary, with a production which allows space for it all to breathe. Everything sounds so huge and loud, but, as on the quieter moments of ‘Unlocking’, still retains that space which allows the music to unfurl by itself. Nothing is forced, which makes the dynamics so impactful.
Rather unexpected is Will Ramos (Lorna Shore vocalist) turning up on ‘Subhuman’. As one of the more interesting modern metal vocalists around, it’s almost a match made in heaven (or is that hell) as Periphery really stretch out on their jagged, technical prowess to integrate Ramo’s guttural inflections. Excellent, and heavier than a ton of bricks as you might very well expect. Counteracting this is the synth-wave of ‘Blackwall’ which provides another unexpected tangent on this album.
The anthemic ‘Malevolent’ returns to the full on crunch of the band’s sound and as they progress further into the second half of the album, thematically it feels so much deeper, as they embrace a darker sound. The quiet/loud approach of ‘Carry On’ contains further elements of synths, mixed with explosive moments of gnarled guitars. ‘Neon Valley’ is an emotive response which leads into the glorious ‘Everyone Dies Alone’. The album is wrapped up by a rather wonderful acoustic denouement.
A Pale White Dot feels less prog heavy than previous albums, although still retains those moments of technical prowess which set them apart from similar bands who play on the quiet/loud emotive style. Veering towards metalcore at times, it thankfully stays just the right side of prog to retain that originality that is often lacking in that genre. Instead you get a clean modern sounding prog-arena album which should play out well to festival crowds this summer. Excellent stuff.
