Periphery announce fifth album, Djent is Not a Genre, in ultimate trolling of rock press

Periphery have announced their long-awaited new album will be titled Periphery V: Djent Is Not A Genre (yes, really) and will land on March 10 this year.

The band also revealed that fans will be able to hear the first two singles – Wildfire and Zagreus – this Thursday (January 12), which will arrive alongside a preorder page for the album.

The title is likely a sarcastic nod to the descriptor that has often dogged the band and become a shorthand tag for the sound of contemporary progressive metal. 

Misha Mansoor has always thrived in his role as the original digital native guitar hero and, as such, is an accomplished master of the dark arts of internet trollery. Indeed, Periphery’s previous record, 2018‘s Hail Stan, innovated in its use of the album title as a shitpost, and Djent Is Not A Genre appears to build on that platform.

The move has set internet tongues wagging after a long period of quiet from the band. Since the last Periphery album, guitarists Misha Mansoor and Mark Holcomb have released music under their Haunted Shores banner, which was reprised during the pandemic. Mansoor also returned to the archives of his pre-Periphery project Bulb and issued a mammoth 10-album collection in 2020. 

Periphery fans have nonetheless known the album was on the way for a while now and the group posted an in-studio shot on social media (since deleted) back in March 2021, alongside the hashtags #Periphery #Djent #NewAlbum.

We’ve not heard anything substantial from the record yet, though the band’s prior teaser campaign [below] focused on a series of short countdown clips, each of which was accompanied by music. The audio appears to imply a cleaner direction, incorporating more orchestral elements.

We’ll have to wait until Thursday to see if there’s anything in that, though. At least in the meantime, we can argue about the title – because, if anything, djent is a sub-genre…

For more information and to pre-save tracks from Periphery V: Djent Is Not A Genre, head to Periphery’s site.