Periphery’s Early Music Disappears from Streaming Platforms

The plus side to streaming services is having access to millions of songs to play whenever you want to. The downside is, those songs can immediately disappear when you don’t even realize it. That is currently the case with the first three albums from metal band Periphery. Periphery, Periphery II, and Juggernaut: Alpha disappeared from streaming services this weekend with no statement from the band.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a high-profile band’s tracks lose their place in a streaming service. This also happened with A Day To Remember for a brief spell in 2015, when their previous record label, Victory Records, engaged in a dispute with Spotify. Since Sumerian Records was Periphery’s previous record label, I did some digging to see if there was any correlation in this instance.

Upon noticing that Periphery’s albums currently on the services are “copyright Periphery,” it can be confirmed that they have the rights to what’s up now. In fact, Sumerian and Periphery had a working relationship up until Periphery IV: Hail Stan in 2019. Periphery IV was released on 3DOT Recordings, which is helmed by Periphery’s Misha Mansoor. On the surface, it doesn’t appear that there’s any bad blood, and there are two Sumerian releases still up, so that can be ruled out.

In that case, where are the songs? Upon checking some more early Saturday night, I discovered some P1 songs still left in the “This is Periphery” Spotify playlist, but when I went to play them, they played for an instant before saying “Song not available.” With no statement from either the band or Sumerian, no conclusions can be jumped to for the time being. Let’s hope these songs get back up soon, as they have millions of plays and hold a special place in a lot of listener’s hearts. If not, this is a testament to keep buying music physically, as you never know when it might not be streamable again.