With their self-titled debut, Periphery heralded the coming of the Djent generation, a new and invigorating technical style that grew before the eyes and ears of its intrigued audience.

But could they back it up? The swift response is the rather aptly titled Periphery II and from the very opening moments, they leave little doubt as to why they are already one of the most inspiring artists of the decade.

We just wanted to make a sort of larger than life sound, you know? says frontman Spencer Sotelo casually of the opulent sound they have captured on the new album.
We also wanted to make it sound like a big rock record, not just like a metal sounding record which is the driving force.

Spacey and textured guitar lead atop mercilessly punishing low-end riffing, back Sotelos melodic, vocal to full effect on Periphery II, but exactly how did they make it sound just soBIG?!

We wanted to branch out from the original Periphery sound. We dont have just Misha (Mansoor - guitar) writing everything any more, now every member in the band writes. He reveals candidly of their switch up, pay off with Periphery II. We wanted to keep things fresh and progressing forward. Our new guitar player Mark (Holcomb - guitar) wrote a tonne, Jake (Bowen - guitar) wrote a tonne of it. I even ended up writing a song myself. Misha is obviously at the helm of it leading it. But, the lyrics, I wrote all of that. I didnt write any two songs about the same thing. Its all over the place and its dark, dark as fuck

And its not just an increased sense of ownership over the process that has upped the ante

I feel like a lot of people when they hear this album theyre going to be like this isnt what djent is supposed to sound like, does not compute you know, people arent going to get it at first. Theyre going to be like I thought Periphery was a djent band. I think more people are going to start understanding that were more of a progressive band. And my performance in the studio was way better this time round because I wrote all that stuff and I got to let all the emotion come out. Im a much better singer now than what I was 2 years ago when I recorded that first album.

Periphery II also twists the concepts of guests on its head by featuring three guest guitar soloists rather than the obligatory guest vocalists : John Petrucci (Dream Theater), Guthrie Govan (Architects) and Wes Hautch (Faceless).

Ill start with John Petrucci, Jake (Bowen guitar) is his nephew and he casually asked him if hed be interested in maybe throwing a guest solo and he was like yeah, Id love to. Guthrie Govan has always been one of Mishas favourite guitar players and Wes Hauch is one of the nastiest most ridiculous guitar players I have ever witnessed thats probably my favourite guitar solo on the whole record. Everybody has more moments of shine on this album It feels more like full band now you know? Not one person writing the music and then other people playing it, everybodys input was on this album.

Watch the official video for ‘Make Total Destroy’!

Periphery II is available now through Roadrunner Records.