Very dissapointed with the new Periphery albulm, or rather, with the choice to have clean vocals for about 85% of the cd. First off, spencer does not hit any of those high notes live what soever, second it sounded like they were trying to go for a protest the hero sort of thing, plus the lyrics were pretty meh. Which really is a shame because the guitar work on it was pretty cool.
A few thoughts:
- I have only listened a couple of times, none critically. Make Total Destroy does sound PTH-ish. But your 85% estimation is pretty off. Not only does he scream more than that, the screams are about 10x better than on the first album. I dont' know if he just got better or if they used recording tricks to thicken it up and add range. Either way, it sounds really good.
- keeping in mind I've never seen Periphery live, I have heard it said recently that Spencer's live performance has improved significantly and that he can hit the notes now. True or not, I enjoy his ridiculous highs on the album.
- They lyrics are indeed pretty stupid. If you're not a great lyricist, the best bet in metal is to make it vague. Big miss there.
It certainly is close to 80% cleans for that album, my friend is the biggest periphery fan and that was actually his comment on it. There is barely any screaming for a "metal" cd. And Periphery fans have said that about spencer literally FOREVER now. Everytime something comes out the first thing they say is "Spencer's improved vocals sound great". He doesn't even attempt half the **** he sings here. It literally is a djent protest album
If you're looking for something similar to Periphery's first album, only a step forward... perhaps what you'd hoped of their second album...
Check out Glass Cloud... They're kind of like if you took the heaviest parts of Periphery and mixed it with old-school Glassjaw. I'd absolutely love them if it weren't for their clean-vocal parts...
I don't know if anyone on here is a fan of Baroness but their new album came out today. It seems pretty divisive amongst critics and fans, with the former hailing it and the latter panning it.
Not a fan of their personally, I opted to listen to a few tracks just because I have an open mind when it comes to listening to bands I may not have enjoyed in the past to see if maybe a new direction here or new sound there may win me over as a fan. After listening to three songs I had to stop. Not because my mood was being enhanced so much that I need to breath but because it was as bland as a piece of cardboard.
The guitars, bass, drums, vocals, and them combined just were a big, giant, steaming pile of meh. Sometimes I feel like critics write reviews praising a new album that's wretched just to pull the wool over people's eyes and this has to be the case with "Yellow:Green". There's nothing that could convince me otherwise. These beard metal compatriots of Mastodon, Red Fang, and the like seem to have just slightly deviated from the same path as their comrades which makes for as mediocre a listening experience as possible.