Periphery, “Periphery V: Djent Is Not A Genre.”

Progressive metal stalwarts Periphery push the bounds on Periphery V: Djent is Not a Genre. While the album’s title declares djent is not a genre, well, neither is Periphery, because this band plays many genres. While they may be the godfathers of djent and they’re best known complex progressive metal, the quintet mixes in so many offbeat sub-genres over the course of its latest record that it’s nearly impossible to pin down. From light jazz to punishing hardcore, the band’s tactful approach manages to effectively balance heaviness and brutality with melody and exploration.

These nine tracks range from five minutes to upward of 12, mixing in genre shifts and unexpected influences along the way. While the band’s prior album, Periphery IV: Hail Stan, took nearly a year to write (a long time for Periphery), this one took far longer; the band has been working on it since early 2020. Spencer Sotelo and co. separated the writing into retreats from a couple weeks or a couple months at a time, navigating the pandemic along the way.

The album is a varied and challenging spectacle, taking listeners on a ride to places they don’t see coming. Take opening track “Wildfire,” which starts as an off-time signature hardcore metal attack before shifting to a piano- and saxophone-driven smooth jazz interlude complete with programmed beats and samples. Just when that’s finally taken hold, it shifts dramatically back to melodic rock. There really is no reference point for what the band is pulling off.

“Atropos” doesn’t span as wide of a genre spectrum, but still shows off the band’s dynamic range. Crossing punishing hardcore with melodic, harmonized vocal stylings, Periphery again manages to fuse punishing aggression with an emo or post-hardcore sensibility.

“Tear the hole inside your soul/ There’s broken bodies in the distance, but right now broken brains are amidst us/ And you should all just surrender,” Sotelo sings.

True to form, the band takes a different tact in the closing moments. The heaviness gives way to an orchestral, film-score-sounding instrumental to bring the track to a close. That momentum keeps moving with “Wax Wings,” an adventurous number that moves from a punk-like anthem to synth-driven ballad and to a mid-tempo heavy rocker.

“Everything Is Fine!” is decidedly simpler but takes no prisoners. At five minutes in length, it’s focused, dialing in powerful and driving hard rock with Sotelo’s guttural scream.

But then there’s “Silhouette,” which delivers the hardest whiplash on this record. It’s a melodic ballad with nary a guitar to be found. It’s built almost entirely on loops, synths and programming—a 180-degree turn from everything else here.

Things ramp back up with “Dying Star,” a more conventional hard rocker. Three consecutive tracks between four and five minutes each give way to the album’s closing trio of tracks all between eight and 12 minutes. The first, “Zagreus,” lives in the realm of heavy hardcore, built on exploring the fretboard. The song fuses both excellent guitar work and topnotch vocals and is a standout here.

“Dracul Gras” somehow manages to take all the sounds that came before it and fuse them into one cohesive body of work. The longest track on the record, it ventures into so much territory over its runtime. The record closes out with “Thanks Nobuo,” an expansive and aggressive number that fuses complexity with infectiousness to bring the record home.

So even if djent is not a genre, it’s at least a sonic signature for Periphery, which continues to play it to its impressive standards.

Follow writer Mike DeWald at Twitter.com/mike_dewald.