Album Review: Periphery - 'Juggernaut: Omega'

Just a heads up, if you haven’t read up on our review of the first part, 'Juggernaut: Alpha', make sure you do so you don’t feel like you’ve walked into see Gone Girl only to find you're now halfway through. All right…you good? Okay then, so you should know the skinny by now. You know who Periphery are, what they sound like, what they're musically capable of, how revered they are. So let’s jump right into part two of the band's latest release – ‘Juggernaut: Omega’.

This is the meatier, beefier part of the chunky whole that is Juggernaut. Everything's darker and heavier, yet still melodic and clean at times but ultimately, here is where the real grit and dirt is. Now, here are some examples we prepared early. ‘The Bad Thing’ is a great combo of the band's heavy and melodic elements, and it wraps them up into a progressive powerhouse of six minutes and it’s arguably the best song off this part. ‘Hell Below’, still heavy, gets a bit jazzy at the end (thank god, they almost forgot to put that in). The title track gives us another jazz section that then moulds into a post-metal sounding section that is truly, truly epic. ‘Stranger Things’, again, a pretty heavy one, re-uses some of the lyrics from the first album in an effort to try to link them up, but like The Hobbit movies reminding us of The Fellowship Of The Ring, it feels kind of half-assed.

Conceptually, ‘Juggernaut: Omega’ is all about the trails and tribulations of this character, and to different people, it’ll mean different things. But, one problem with this record (as a whole) is that it doesn’t quite feel as complete and as cohesive as the band's sophomore album ‘Periphery II: This Time It’s Personal’, and that was just one fucking album. Thus, that album still feels like the band's highest point of achievement (the cover of Slipknot’s ‘The Heretic Anthem’ was a fantastic addition too).

Another problem that the record (again, as a whole) has is it lacks certain specifics. Look at La Dispute’s ‘Wildlife’, Defeater’s last three full-lengths, or even Stone Sour’s ‘House Of Gold & Bones’ albums, they all had specifics within the lyrics to help weave the stories on together. Here that just seems absent. Who knows? Maybe it’s all in the physical copies of the album(s) where you will find the full story, maybe it’s the subtle re-use of rhythms and modes and phrases that will help to get the point across, or maybe you won't even notice the story. Fuck, maybe we just don't get it, but by itself this is one great album that stands tall without its story component.

Juggernaut, the story, is like the plot in a game such as Call Of Duty, Battlefield, and/or Gears Of War, we all could've made do without it trying with all of the exciting technical marvel going on around us. However, for those who get into this album, you will really get into it. Of course, Periphery should be commended for trying to pull so much content together and trying to string it along. Regardless, this is still a great second part for the latest venture from a band who continues to experiment. Periphery - love that shit.

1. Reprise

2. The Bad Thing

3. Priestess

4. Graveless

5. Hell Below

6. Omega

7. Stranger Things