Next Tuesday (27), Periphery are going to release their most ambitious album yet, but that’s because they’re releasing two albums. Juggernaut: Alpha and Juggernaut: Omega is an ambitious project, a concept album split into two separately available albums. And while Periphery are the first band to do something like that this year, they’re not the first band to ever do it. Whether it’s to keep the word of mouth up about a band, an attempt from a label to maximize sales, or a demand from an artist that their records not be lumped together to make their concept more special, here’s our list of bands that released dual albums, either at the same time or separately.
5) Five Finger Death Punch, The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell, Volumes 1 and 2
Five Finger Death Punch were working on their fourth album in 2013, when they decided that they’d push on and make it a double album. The two albums were both released in 2013, with the first one released at the end of July and the second in mid-November. The first of the two albums was packed with cameos. Rob Halford, In This Moment’s Maria Brink and Tech N9ne appeared on the album. The second album featured a cover of “House of the Rising Sun.” The band’s gambit appears to have paid off. Both albums debuted at #2, and the first is about to joins the band’s first three albums as gold-selling, moving over 500,000 copies. The second one isn’t far behind. Regardless of whether you love the band or view them as everything wrong with current metal, the gamble they took to release the two albums separately appears to have paid off.
