#53: Periphery - Juggernaut#11 for 2015
This review is for both Juggernaut discs, as they really need to be considered as one album, it's sort of pointless to have them split up. Really I can only assume they did that just so they could sell two albums instead of one, since there's barely over 80 minutes of music here, and definitely time that could've been cut from one disc or the other to push it down to a single disc.
And this album was hyyyyped to hell and back. I didn't even pay attention that well and knew they'd been building up to "Juggernaut" for ages. So naturally, I'm going to need to have high expectations if the band wants me to have them that badly. So no, expectations not met.
And heck, not even met during the time of last year where I was still into djent, much less over a year later at the point where I've basically declared djent a dead landscape for myself. It didn't take long to write this off as "solid, but nothing spectacular or even very unique". Not to say it's bad, either. I probably wouldn't have listened to it as much to try and make it click if it was outright awful, but... I can't say I'm very pleased with them after this, and I doubt I'll be getting another record from them in the future, since Periphery has never been one of my favorite bands to begin with.
At this point in my life, I'm generally over the sound of the vocals on this album, both the cleans and the harsh. The cleans are very breathy and whiny, and the harsh vocals lack any real power behind them. There are at least a fair number of good vocal melodies throughout the album to make up for the weakness of the cleans, but I basically never notice the harsh vocals. The majority of the better vocal melodies are on the first album, tracks like A Black Minute, Heavy Heart, Alpha, and Psychosphere, though Priestess on Omega has some nice ones too. There's some good choruses and bridges in songs that are otherwise not that spectacular, too, 22 Faces and Rainbow Gravity come to mind here.
There's also a lot of recurring musical themes here, perhaps too many, especially where a few of them are kind of pointless. For one, the track Reprise on Omega is a pointless reprise of A Black Minute that just stretches out the album by another minute and a half, and without it the album would practically fit on one disc. There's also a short pre-echo of Psychosphere at the end of The Scourge that, while nice, feels rather pointless. The most meaningful reprises come at the end of Omega, where first A Black Minute and then Alpha are reprised, the second of these being a really powerful and chilling moment, easily the best point of the entire album, and it ties both discs together quite nicely.
The album does feel kind of messy though, as per Periphery standards, with short segue tracks arbitrarily at the end of songs they have nothing to do with, and in a lot of cases the better than the songs that precede them. The pointless heaviness of MK Ultra ends with a nice jazzy break that I'd love to see developed into a full song. The Scourge ends with a melody from Psychosphere as previously mentioned. And Hell Below, the other pointlessly heavy track, ends with another cool jazzy little break that segues into the track after.
A brief moment to compare and contrast two similar songs; The Event is a short track based around one single riff that's kind of cool on its own but feels underdeveloped, like a demo that just got left on the album 'cause, hey, why not. Whereas Four Lights is another short instrumental, but with a variety of riffs, a strong groove to it, and even a short quiet break, to make it feel like a fully developed song. It's kind of baffling that they can get it both completely wrong and quite right on the same disc.
Aside from the usual djent fare that ends up being mostly forgettable (22 Faces, The Bad Thing, and Graveless especially come to mind, all being completely flavorless tracks that don't add to the album), there's a lot of poppier tracks with focus on brighter melodies and catchy hooks. Alpha is probably the pinnacle of this, with the best chorus of the album easily, and some bright synth in the intro, though the back half of the song feels like an extended outro that drags on too long. Heavy Heart is nice and poppy for the first half and really pretty good, with a more relaxed but still pretty bright back half. Priestess is probably the softest song on either disc, but still has a nice build throughout it and the extended groove of the outro is pretty enjoyable as well. A Black Minute, as well, has obviously the band's favorite vocal lines, with how often they're repeated, and a nice moment of group vocals in the middle, a good starting build to the album. Stranger Things, even, is a fair bit brighter, and with a decent amount of atmosphere, though it gets a lot more praise than I feel it deserves, it's good but not outstanding.
The "epic" of the album, Omega, deserves at least a few further comments, as well. The first third of the song is pretty straightforward and not too interesting beyond the softer and more atmospheric bit, but the triplet groove and energy of the middle third puts it back on the right track, and there's some gorgeous stuff between this and the big build at the end of the track. Though the last minute is a tacked-on heavy bit that doesn't do the song any favors and feels particularly pointless, don't know why they couldn't just end on a high note.
Psychosphere is easily the best track, but not for any particular reason other than it just exemplifies all the strengths of the album - a good vocal melody that strays away from the whinier side of the vocals, some really groovy riffs and a thick atmosphere to the whole track. It doesn't sound like much, but it's really a joy of a track.
Alpha as a whole definitely runs circles around Omega, which doesn't really get good until the last two tracks, with Alpha being pretty solid throughout, but then taken as a whole, having the weaker half as the second half makes the album really start to drag until it does hit those last two tracks. And at 80 minutes straight of djent, it can be kind of grueling to sit through as a whole, the album is definitely less than the sum of its parts.
Still, I wouldn't say it's a bad album, just a decent one that was way more hyped than it should've been, and shows a band who's content to stagnate without pushing their sound further, even if they can still produce some solid tunes while doing so. I think a 60 minute cut of the album with the fat trimmed would've made for a much more compelling experience overall. The story isn't *that* important and honestly it's a pretty bad and cheesy story, not even worth mentioning beyond that.
Favorite Tracks: Psychosphere, Omega, Heavy Heart, Stranger Things, A Black Minute
Least Favorite Tracks: MK Ultra, Graveless, The Bad Thing, 22 Faces
Alpha: 6.25/10Omega: 6/10Overall: 6/10DTF Addendum: There really are some cool moments on here but overall I prefer P2, and even then that isn't a perfect fantastic album either. I don't think I've ever been fully "in" to Periphery and odds are I won't get any more of their albums but this one is still alright, just maybe a bit bloated and with a few too many dull/unmemorable spots.
Topic: Parama's 2015 Retrospective List: #1: I'm Not Sorry For That At All (Read 30862 times)