A few years ago this band started as a bunch of (awesome) tidbits of songs by this dude, Misha Mansoor, more popularly known across the internets as “Bulb”. I came to know about him in my early years of partaking in the Search for the Ultimate PODxt Guitar Tone. While I was struggling with recording anything that resembled a real guitar this guy was producing audio that rivaled (and in some cases surpassed) professionally recorded bands. His Soundclick page remains to this day one of my favorite online spots to go for a good/original/metal/random music listening experience. As I’m sure was the case for a lot of other people out there, since his stuff was (and still is) incredibly popular among budding guitarists/amateur producers/metal musicians.

He eventually got a band running, Periphery; and a few years and a lot of line-up changes later, he’s finally inked a deal with Sumerian Records. They’re currently on the Thrash and Burn tour across the US and they’ll be recording their debut afterward (or something like that). You can check out some of their songs and awesome studio diaries over at their MySpace.

I love the guy’s music. While the Meshuggah influence is definitely palpable, he manages to forge a sound all his own. Great riffing, interesting melodies, intelligent songwriting and terrific drumming. It actually reminds me a lot of Sikth; a heavier, faster and more elegant sounding Sikth. Yes, instrumentally this band is awesome. Then the fucking vocals come in and shit on everything.

All of the previous musical praise is marred by their horrible fucking singer. That guy shits on an otherwise promising young band. I don’t know how this Misha guy who obviously has a great musical talent, can’t hear just how generic and plain bad the singer is. You’d think that by being a huge Meshuggah/Sikth/BTBAM/Ion Dissonance/Dream Theater he’d have a sense of what good vocals are. His clean singing reminds me of every single shitty emo band that has ever existed, and even worse yet, his “growling” is akin to listening to a castrated version of Slipknot’s Corey Taylor. Seriously, fuck this guy. And he’s not the only shitty singer this band’s had. I think he’s actually the third one in a line of horrible sounding motherfuckers.

That being said, I’ve only heard him sing on top of the home-made clips available online. They might be the best fucking sounding amateur recordings I’ve ever heard, but they still don’t come close to the best of professional studio recordings. So things might get better when they hit the studio, but I doubt it. Here’s to Periphery and to hoping they bring much needed fresh air on the metal scene. And hopefully, to them getting rid of their craptastic singer.