Album Review: Converge - Axe to Fall


For the last decade I have been waiting for Converge to suck. When Jane Doe came out, I was like, "there's no way in hell they will ever be able to keep this pace up. This is unrelenting and there's just no fucking way they can keep this progression up and keep this vicious animosity throughout the years." Well then You Fail Me came out, and I was like, "POWNED!!! OKAY OKAY CONVERGE I GIVE UP, YOU ARE QUITE POSSIBLY THE BEST HARDCORE BAND OF ALL TIME. I'M SORRY FOR DOUBTING YOU!! THIS IS THEMOST VIOLENT AND TRAGIC ALBUM I HAVE EVER HEARD...but seriously you can't keep this up forever. You will fall at some point." Then No Heroes came out, and Jake Bannon slayed a 500 pound crow, cooked it in his blood, sweat, and tears, screamed at me and told me to eat up. I was duped again. Converge had done it. But after my horrifically glutonous feast of crow and blood, I was like, "seriously though the next album is going to suck right?" At this point Converge is just making me look stupid.

To say this album is a masterpiece doesn't do it justice. To say this album is one of the most viciously insane, vile, and violent records to date is an understatement. This is Jacob Bannon, Kurt Ballou, Nate Newton, and Ben Koeller taking your mouth, placing in on the curb, and stomping you (a-la AHX)for even doubting their abilities as kings of pain, destruction, and all things unholy. Quite simply, this is the most brutal album to come out this year. And to be completely honest, they have not been this brutal since Jane Doe.

Jane Doe though, was a different type of brutality. While it was the first time they were ever produced at such a prestine level, they were still in the ending phases of their early punk days. There was a feral wrecklessness with which their sound still had that made it emotional enough to connect to but so fucking amazing in its production and its musical technicality, that you had to headbang at some parts. Kurt was just getting started.

Since then, Kurt Ballou's production skills have improved by leaps and bounds. Now he is one of the premiere names in musical production for anything punk, hardcore, or loud. You name me a record I loved, he probably produced it. And this time, he took it upon himself to engineer the entire fucking thing by himself. What resulted is one of the fiercest recordings for Converge to date in the same vein as Jane Doe but with a much more technical and physical domination that comes with years of refinement and experience. The spirit of complete abandonment is the same, but where Converge was once a rabid and feral animal that could not be contained, it is now an focused, sneering, merciless, vicious and domaneering beast of an entity.

The first track, "Dark Horse" is a triumphant, metal-inspired, opus that falsely leads the listener to a realm where they will ride high with them and draw swords together, slaying enemies and being the best of allies against all things evil. The problem with this is, unbeknownst to the listener, Converge is that evil and the whole thing is just one giant trap to lure you into a fall sense of accessability.

By the time the actual axe falls on your head and the title track "Axe to Fall" kicks in, fucking forget it. You are mincemeat and they are the fucking hammer that is going to pound you into dust after they've dicapitated you and shit on whatever pathetic memory you have. From here the whole things gets more and more terrifying and obliterating, track by track. "Effigy" is what your corpse is burned into and after you are through burning, the "Worms Will Feed" on your lifeless and useless corpse. I wouldn't be surprised if Ben Koeller's drums have skullfucked you senseless by now.

"Worms Will Feed" is another standout track on this album that grinds it's way from one angry blugeon into another. There are no real epics on this album, the way the recent records have done, and I guess you can say this is the epic piece, but really there is no tension and release. At any point if you think Converge has let up, you are fucked as they hammer away driving home a very important point, "DO NOT FUCK WITH US."

Ben hits his peaks with tracks "Losing Battle", "Dead Beat" and "Cutter". To me, this is where album hits its stride. Each song, is as fast, as driving and seemingly more dire than the last. By the time the album hits "Slave Driver" Converge has already done a brilliant job doing what they do best and that's transitioning from bluegoning to straight slicing and dicing of the listener's ears. There is still tons of riffage and tons of fist pumping moments.

"Slave Driver" to me is by far the best track on the album. Nate's bass is as evil as it has ever sounded as it leads you into the chaotic and frenzied pace of this chugger. The timing between the band is perfect on everything as Jake's voice seemlessly transitions from the shrieks and and caterwauls that gained him fame to the gutteral and battered sound of his true voice that made their early shit so fucking good. I cannot say how much I love this track. It's just One fist after another, into the cold concrete as the face has clearly turned to mush.

From here the album segues nicely into a hollow and definite end as Steve Von Till brings the "Cruel Bloom" upon you. The final track "Wretched World" is another great example in no tension and release epic. It is seven minutes of long, winding, and dying sounds. It is the perfect metaphor for this album as it basically kills you within the first three songs, and let's you suffer and rot for 42 minutes. Oh yeah, there's a fucking synthesizer in the song too! Whatever, it's the dude from Cave-In singing. You'd expect it.

I can't reiterate the intensity and ferocity with which this album comes at you with, which seems redudant when talking about Converge, but this time the album comes at you with so much calculation, and so much malice. Where as before they wanted to feel their pain and violently cut you up with a rusty knife, Jake and the gang have honed their cutting techniques, bought expensive hunting knives that scramble your insides upon twisting, planned their evil intentions, taken you out the woods, raped and shot you in the spine, and proceeded to slice and dice accordingly. No accidents, full complete premediation. Then again, this is Converge we are talking about. Would you expect anything less? I know I wouldn't and from now on, I definitely won't.

Grade: A



Here is a video of "axe to fall" without vocals. It's brutal enough but go their myspce and here Jake spew acid all over your ears.

Scumbag Casanova

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Update: I have a webcam

I am too lazy and tired to write about what has transpired in the last month and why my blogs have been so spotty. All you need to know is I got a new laptop and it has a fancy camera on it. Advantage: you.



- Videodrone