APWD thoughts after 5 days
Not that you guys need another random person’s opinion.. but I’m going to give it to you anyway lol
I have been a huge Periphery fan since Juggernaut was released, I came from the post hardcore/deathcore world and new releases in those genres weren’t doing it for me. Periphery was the perfect gateway into progressive metal for me, and because of them I am now a huge prog metal fan.
The first thing I want to say is in headphones the mix sounds amazing as always. However in my car the low end is way too loud and my car will auto cut the volume of the audio if the low end is too loud. This makes listening to it in the car extremely difficult without crushing the low end in the EQ settings. I’m curious to know if you guys are experiencing that as well.
With that being said, most of their albums post Jugg have needed time to grow on me. P3 was an instant click, P4 took some time and I do like P5 a lot but for some reason I can’t shake the feeling that something is missing from that album.
On Friday when APWD was released I was unimpressed. I thought it sounded like they were trying to reach a broader audience by making the songs a bit simpler and more mainstream, but knowing their albums sometimes take some time to digest I continued listening to it over the next 5 days. Now, I think it is fantastic. I still don’t know exactly where I would rank it, but it’s not at the bottom. One thing that sticks out to me is they usually have a hint of silliness in their music, and this album is very serious and emotional, and they did a great job at really painting a picture of the feeling of loneliness throughout the entire album without being corny. Spencer continues to get better overtime, and his improvement on this album isn’t necessarily hitting difficult vocal lines, but more so of capturing certain emotions and the lyrics on this one are better than ever. The choruses on Talk, Heaven on High, Unlocking.. fuck it pretty much every single song are unbelievably catchy and memorable.
As a Juggernaut glazer, I have been hoping for a sequel or at least more songs with that sound. There are pieces of Juggernaut influences here and there like in Malevolent which to me feels like a blend of a Jugg and P5 song. And in Subhuman the riff right before and during Will’s part gives me heavy MK Ultra vibes, as well as some of Spencer’s screams.
My favorites so far are Malevolent and Heaven on High, but I think every song is fantastic! I will now conclude, to those who made it to the end of a random reddit strangers long winded opinion I applaud you!