Two
Albums, One Concept, All Metal
Conceived
of as a two-disc concept album, Periphery's Juggernaut
Alpha
and Juggernaut
Omega
cover a tremendous amount of ground musically and
lyrically. Tine-wise,
the seventeen songs of these two albums clock in at nearly and hour
and a half. Musically, Periphery demonstrates tremendous range
musically, ranging from quiet electronic passages to the heaviest of
hardcore thrash. My only quibble with the albums (besides the
decision to sell them as two separate albums instead of one pricey
double-album) is the lack of "connective tissue" sounds or
dialogue that would make the story more clear. It worked
spectacularly well for Queensryche's Operation:
Mindcrime,
and Alice Cooper's recent Along
Came a Spider
incorporated several, making an album that could have simply been
another batch of Alice Cooper shock-rock tunes became a story of
murder and redemption. Juggernauts
Alpha
and Omega,
like One-Eyed Doll's Witches
really could have used a bit of this.
Enough
criticism. Periphery's spectacular range emerges within the first
two tracks; from the quiet opening of "A Black Minute" (a
feature of recent concept albums, it seems) and strong melodic metal
to the screaming thrash of "MK Ultra" (a reference to the
hopefully defunct CIA program aimed at developing and perfecting
mind-control through drugs and other means.) Deeper tracks reveal
influences such as Linkin Park and their contemporaries, as the sound
veers between melody and thrash with such force as to demand the
strictest attention if the story is to be sussed out; bring your
ritalin, as much as I enjoyed the experience, I could not really drag
much of a story out of the songs. Between the album art and some of
the snatches of lyrics I could latch onto, it seems to be a sci-fi
tale incorporating some psychological exploration of the self. The
press release announcing the albums says that Alpha
focuses on backstory and character development, while Omega
"focuses on some pretty serious and gut-wrenching events[.]"
Despite
my difficulty in grasping the concept part of this, I found much to
appeciate and enjoy in these two albums. Where "Alpha" and
"22 Faces" display the band's debt to Linkin Park and Papa
Roach, the instrumental "Four Lights" demonstrates that
Slayer is also among Periphery's muses. The set's least thrashing
song -"Priestess"- includes classical/Santana-inspired
guitar and earnest singing; easily the most radio-friendly tune of
the seventeen. Almost every guitar solo on the records is more
classical than classic. Obviously a result of the guitarist's
training, and it gifts the tunes a rather unique sound. I'm much
more used to the Yngwie Malmstein/Randy Rhodes/George Lynch school of
guitar solos, and I generally find classical guitar to be very
somnolescent, but in this environment the sound fits the mood quite
well (not to mention the excessive rhythm guitar and bass pretty much
preclude most notions of sleep.)
Periphery's
full spectrum of sound comes from a full six full-time members,
including three (3!) guitarists, the requisite bass and drums, and a
vocalist who apparently does both the crooning and the screaming.
Guitarists Misha Mansoor, Jake Bowen and Mark Holcomb deliver the
sonic punch, however Mansoor seems to be the lead, having been a
Guitar
World
cover boy. Bassist Adam Getgood and drummer Matt Halpern have also
appeared on the covers of Bass
Player
and Modern
Drummer
respectively. Vocalist Spencer Sotelo rounds out the group with his
incredible range. Obviously, the members bring exceptional skills to
the enterprise, showing that more than garage band enthusiasm helped
to shape Juggernaut's
two discs of metal. Juggernaut
Alpha
and Omega
may be this year's ultimate metal album, bringing together so many
influences, sounds, and moods in such a dense collection that no one
who loves metal can afford to ignore these albums.
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