Periphery - Periphery I (2010)

Sumerian Records, April 20, 2010

Tracklist

1. Insomnia
2. The Walk
3. Letter Experiment
4. Jetpacks Was Yes!
5. Light
6. All New Materials
7. Buttersnips
8. Icarus Lives!
9. Totla Mad
10. Ow My Feelings
11. Zyglrox
12. Racecar
13. Captain On/Eureka (bonus tracks on some versions)

This entry is one in a series of ten-year retrospectives on my favorite albums from the year 2010. Periphery's self-titled debut, while showing room for growth at the time, is technically impressive and provided a preview of what was to come. While one of their less cohesive albums overall, it showed the band's brilliance early on as the first full-length project from what would become a major metal band of the decade. Periphery has become one of the front-runners in the modern progressive metal or “djent” scene and their self-titled debut was the beginning of it all.

Guitarist Misha Mansoor had announced this long before it actually released. The album showed room for improvement which they would accomplish, as the overall songwriting structure and cohesion between vocalist Spencer Sotelo and the band's three guitarists would become stronger on subsequent albums like Juggernaut: Alpha/Omega and Periphery III: Select Difficulty. A couple of tracks here do meander a bit without really going anywhere, and you get the feeling that this album isn't quite as concise as it could have been, and a comparison of "Jetpacks is Yes" with "Priestess" indicates Periphery has made progress in writing ballads. However, it was clear early on that the band's skill was undeniable, and this is a very impressive progressive technical metal debut. It also displayed the band's sense of humor with the less-than-serious nature of the song titles. "The Walk", single "Icarus Lives", "All New Materials", "Letter Experiment" are some of the highlights on the album.

Periphery I is a rather lengthy introduction to the band, reaching 73 minutes across twelve tracks, including the progressive closer "Racecar" which is over fifteen minutes long. The rest of the songs each range from four to nearly seven minutes long. From the memorable polyrhythms on "The Walk" to the simultaneously melodic and technical "Icarus Lives", Periphery has much to offer the listener. If you like instrumental complexity or guitar skill then this is the album for you. It earns a score of 8/10.