The only thing that really brought me to House of Blues last night, March 26 2010, was Periphery. They are a band I have had gotten to watch develop long before they took their recent contract with Sumerian. These guys are really persuing a sound in metal that hasn't been truly tapped yet. Most people hear these guys play, and don't quite know how to react to their music. This band has devilish screams and angelic soaring like singing, with super technical polyrhyms, complex chord and melody progressions which I think leaves a lot of people scratching their heads, "Going wait, you can't sing and be that technical of a metal band. Can you?" Well ladies and gents, you can.
Periphery is the band for you if you are all about serious dynamics in your music. If you like non-stop blast beats and cookie monster screaming, not so much. If you want pop-radio friendly metal, not so much. However, if you love it when a band goes form crazy heavy, to melodic and ephereal and atmospheric in the same song, these dudes may be just what you have been looking for.
Most of the other bands were ok, but far from impressed me. Missed the opening band from Austin, but didn't hear anything positive about them. About destroyed my neck headbanging during Periphery. Dirge Within was ok, but sounded like bands I've already heard before. Winds of Plague was pretty good, but I might have been slightly biased because they had a super hot keyboard player, but the keys also added a uniqueness to their style. Fear Factory's instrumentals sounded pretty solid, but the singer was kind of pitchy. His screams were on point, but his voice sounded blown which is why I think he didn't sound on point during sections of the songs in which he sang.
Hands down, I really think Periphery was by far the most talented band on stage that night. Had the chance to talk to most of them, and they were all super cool and down to earth.