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Periphery fans soon will have lots of the band's new music to take in.
How long should it take for a musician to help his band put out a couple of acclaimed releases, use that acclaim to secure a column-writing gig for a major guitar magazine then find himself sitting on some of the most anticipated work in the metal music realm?
There’s probably no formula for it, but it’s exactly the place that Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor finds himself.
A scant two years since Periphery released its djent-leaning debut, the band has two separate releases in the works, one a single album that should hit the shelves later this spring or early in the summer, and another called “Juggernaut,” a double concept album that still doesn’t have a firm release date.
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Periphery With Protest the Hero, the Jeff Loomis Band, the Safety Fire and more WHEN: 7 tonight WHERE: Sunshine Theater, 120 W. Central HOW MUCH: $16 at www.holdmyticket.com |
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Meanwhile Mansoor, the columnist/guitarist and now eight-string guitar designer, has almost unwillingly been put in the forefront of all the hype surrounding the band. Luckily, most of the hype centers on Periphery’s groove-heavy style that mixes gut-rattling, downtuned 8-string guitars, bits of electronic flourishes and the dichotomous vocals of Spencer Sotelo, who manages to ably mix thunderous growls with tuneful singing.
“I had no idea that any of this would happen,” Mansoor said in an interview. “A lot of it is cool and amazing, but it builds expectations and pressure, which is really unnecessary to me. I don’t want that pressure, because it would go against why we started doing this to begin with.”
It all started in 2005, when Mansoor – who originally played drums for Periphery – formed the group in Baltimore. Numerous lineup changes informed the early history of Periphery, but the band settled on a firm lineup for its April 2010 full-length debut, which was followed by the “Icarus” EP a year later.
“Icarus,” meant only to tide Periphery fans over until a new full-length could be completed, ended up being the starting point for many of the band’s fans. It was both a critical and commercial success, though Mansoor says he isn’t quite sure what to make of that fact.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing,” Mansoor said. “The goal was that it should be a supplement to the first album, in fact, I would tell people that our first album is a much better way to discover us.”
And soon, fans of the band will have plenty of new music in which to dive into. It seems that “Juggernaut” will still be some time in completion while the band has plans to play music from its forthcoming release (Mansoor joked that it would be called, “Periphery 2: This Time It’s Personal”), beginning on the Summer Slaughter Tour later this year.
