OneMetal.com REVIEW:
Converge – Axe To Fall

Converge’s Jane Doe album tore the extreme music scene a new orifice upon its release – the raging firestorm of metallic technicality and hardcore fury signalling the Massachusetts quartet as perhaps the most uniquely ferocious act out there. The following couple of albums, whilst demonstrating Converge’s near-obsessive need to expand and refine the boundaries of their sound to a degree that makes other bands seem positively static, didn’t quite manage to capture that lightning-in-a-bottle ferocity. So, the big question on everyone’s mind upon slapping Axe To Fall into the player for the first time has to be, “Is it as good as Jane Doe?”

I’ll tell you what, folks – I think it is. From the opening moments, Converge go for the throat with ‘Dark Horse’ – the rampaging beat and stunningly frantic main guitar riff underpinned by the surprisingly melodic bassline and Jacob Bannon’s indecipherable yet frighteningly intense vocals provides a quick surge of adrenaline. In fact, much as with Jane Doe, your first listen to this record will probably fly by, the pyroclastic riff gymnastics, charging beats and unpredictable, jarring-yet-captivating song structures searing their corrosive path across your synapses. The guitar work, especially, is perhaps Kurt Ballou’s most technical and frantic material since 1998’s Petitioning The Empty Sky.

After a few more listens, though, you’ll become more aware of the surprising level of beauty and emotional complexity buried in the record. Witness the down-tempo, dread-inducing dirge of fifth track ‘Worms Will Feed’ – all seething malevolence and lurching beats punctuated with clattering fills. Later comes ‘Cutter’, a sub-2-minute frenzied attack, almost as if the band is kicking out against letting the album fade away quietly – then, later still, the one-two punch of ‘Cruel Bloom’ and ‘Wretched World’ – the former a gorgeous, bluesy, largely acoustic number with piano accompaniment and the gravelly, soulful vocals of Steve Von Till from Neurosis, the latter a funereal, downbeat epic, aided by Ghengis Tron’s Mookie Singerman – building gradually from looped guitar noise and restrained drumming to a multi-layered, achingly beautiful crescendo. Converge meets Mogwai, if you want to be reductive about it.

So, in the final analysis? Not a foot has been put wrong throughout this album, and as well as managing to recall the sheer heart-in-throat intensity of the sonic nailbomb that was Jane Doe, Converge have also succeeded in once more expanding the borders of their sound and painting their compositions with a wider emotional palette, without softening their approach or alienating their core fanbase. An unbridled success, then, on all conceivable fronts. Look forward to album number eight.

Bottom Line

Converge's seventh album is, quite possibly, their masterpiece - a work breathtaking in its aggression, beauty, power and scope. Essential for any fan of extreme music.