Lista de los grupos Metal Peripetea The Rise of the Phoenix

I am really unsure where I missed the fact that Melodic Death Metal had to take most of its identity from Heavy Metal. Nowadays, most Melodeath acts incorporate that Iron Maiden characteristic riffing and I feel rather uncertain if it was ever meant to sound that way. I don't want to sound like your typical grumpy old fart reminding younger kids that back in the days, it sounded different but it did. Heartwork’s Carcass opened the way, quickly followed by the then stagnating Swedish Death Metal scene with guys like At The Gates or Dark Tranquility.

Then with rising and deserved popularity, the genre seemed to have been watered down to fit in MTV’s standards and attract pre-pubescent teens that impersonated the very definition of angst. How boring.

Does it sound bad? To a certain extent, yes. Because Peripetea does occasionally follow that ‘faulty’ path on its first release “Rise Of The Phoenix”.

Peripetea is a young band from Germany and I know I might have written this quite a few times, but being a young band comes with pluses and minuses. You yet have to find your own sound, get rid off of those burdening influences while having the energy to try and create something new and original.

Lyrically, Peripetea tries to go on the slippery road of Sci-Fi themed lyrics. Not too many bands have tried that feat and few have made a name for themselves. The most famous band is probably Nocturnus with releases like “The Key” or “Thresholds” that have become landmarks in Death Metal. The comparison is not vein since the intro to “Rise Of The Phoenix” is very reminiscent of Louis Panzer’s use of keyboards offering a few spoken words about the story to come laced together with keyboard layers a la Matrix soundtrack. Not a bad start.

Then the EP really starts off with “Nya’s Complaint”. As I wrote earlier, what's up with this Iron Maiden rip off going on lately in Melodic Death Metal? I wouldn't qualify the song as disposable because it has some good riffing and a good few ideas, but I can’t get out of my head that it shouldn’t be heading this way. Adding Death Metal vocals to a Heavy Metal structured song? Is that what Melodeath is all about nowadays? I hope not.

Then comes “A New Hope”, part 1 of "The Rise of the Phoenix" storyboard. In my opinion it is the best song in the whole EP, starting off with clean guitars giving it a Opeth feel only to give birth to a down-tempo song that I really much enjoyed. I had that feeling it was going in a nice Doom Death direction a la old-Anathema except with a bit more melody that gave it more flesh and bones. Halfway through the song, I finally got what I was not aware I was looking for… that Nocturnus feeling only to let way for a a la progressive part with cleaner vocals. Overall, a complex song that rang the bell and that is definitely holding this EP together. I enjoyed the vocals too even though that medieval cleaner interlude is usually not the stuff I usually enjoy.

“Rise Of The Phoenix” ends with “Reason And Fury”, part 2. I'm not really sure about the purpose of that song. There’s a blatant rip off of Smashing Pumpkins’ Soma, but that’s not the worst thing in my opinion. Here Peripetea tries to do something that goes beyond their current abilities. That Space Metal Opera thing. They're just not ready for that and a few Opeth-like things will not save the track from failure. Where in "A New Hope” I could condone the use of clean vocals, in “Reason And Fury” they just sound ridiculous. It takes a real voice to try and sing clean vocals. You may hide your lack of talent/practice on growls, but with clean vocals, it’s a whole another story. In the end, the incessant breaks and not so good ideas added to the overwhelming bad clean vocals finish to completely ruin this song. Maybe if they’d have stuck to something classic, the result would have been less catastrophic but as a younger band they wanted to do too much in too long a time without really knowing where they were going.

As a result, “The Rise of the Phoenix” leaves a kind of bittersweet taste in the mouth. Lack of identity and focus make it at best sympathetic but at worst dispensable. I’d suggest exploring the good grounds set on “A New Hope” and develop it into something of their own instead of giving us three wobbly tracks that seem like they don't belong to each other.

A reasonable effort from the Germans “Peripetea” but that has yet to be confirmed with something more (or less?) elaborate. Not the record I would recommend to anyone but those interested in emerging Melodeath talents might find their lot.