Periphery III: Select Difficulty

Periphery III: Select Difficulty is the fifth studio album by American progressive metal band Periphery. The album was released July 22, 2016 through Sumerian Records, and was produced by Misha Mansoor and Adam Getgood. The opening track, "The Price Is Wrong", was nominated for Best Metal Performance in the 59th Annual Grammy Awards. It is the last album the band released on this label. It is also the last album to feature bassist Adam "Nolly" Getgood as an official member of Periphery before he left the band in 2017, though he still returned on Periphery IV: Hail Stan to produce, engineer, and mix the album, in addition to contributing final bass parts.

Critical reception

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 70 out of 100 based on 5 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Calum Slingerland of Exclaim! praised the band's "drive to keep exploring out of their stylistic box". Prog Sphere's Stefan Andonov stated that "Select Difficulty is by far their most diverse album, they have grown and have found a way to combine complex sounding vibe with the popular one."

Track listing

Personnel

Periphery

Spencer Sotelo – lead vocals

Misha "Bulb" Mansoor – guitar, synths

Jake Bowen – guitar, synths

Mark Holcomb – guitar

Adam "Nolly" Getgood – bass, guitar

Matt Halpern – drums, percussion

Production

Misha "Bulb" Mansoor – production

Adam "Nolly" Getgood – mixing, engineering

Ermin Hamidovic – mastering

Taylor Larson – vocal production

Spencer Sotelo – vocal production

Jason Richardson – additional vocal tracking

Pete Adams – additional vocal tracking

Randy Slaugh – live orchestra, choir production, engineering

Ken Dudley – orchestral sessions mixing

Additional personnel

Emily Rust – violin

Cymrie Van Drew – violin

Megumi Terry – violin

Caryn Bradley – viola

Kelsey Clegg – viola

Clayton Wieben – viola

Chris Morgan – cello

Robert Willes – cello

Adam Heyen – French horn

Tyler Arndt – trumpet

Tom Francis – bass trombone

Austin Bentley – choir

Tiffany Yeates – choir

Jonathan Allred – choir

Randy Slaugh – choir

Eric Slaugh – choir

Jeffrey Slaugh – choir

Hayley Malesich – choir

Kelsey Clegg – choir

Clayton Wieben – choir

Taylor Larson – choir

Emily Piriz – choir

Nick Day – choir

Jake Bowen – choir

Charts

References

Periphery (band) albums

2016 albums

Sumerian Records albums

Century Media Records albums

Roadrunner Records albums