I love those conversations with my friends where we argue over which is the best Converge album. It's like arguing about the best kind of pizza. Eventually everyone comes to the conclusion that pizza is the greatest food of all time, and then we're all just hungry for pizza. I'm generalizing of course, but that doesn't change the fact that Converge is one of the most highly respected and loved bands of the metalcore and hardcore genres. So I'm assuming you want to know what my favourite Converge album is now, right? Well the general consensus almost always seems to be Jane Doe, which I think is pretty much untouchable, but my personal favourite happens to be You Fail Me. Let me tell you why.
In almost every conversation I've had about Converge, my friends bring up the point that what they love most about the band is that nearly every song they write is memorable, thanks to the band's penchant for writing some of the catchiest metalcore hooks. For a group that plays dark, chaotic metalcore writing memorable songs is a pretty impressive feat. Think of all the forgettable Converge Jr. bands that have spawned in the past decade attempting to imitate the bands' sound. What's the difference between them and Converge? It's not just that Converge came first, I think it's all in the songwriting. Tracks like Dropout, and Eagles Become Vultures flow from one incredible riff to the next without ever sounding too similar to one another. Every single track is individually memorable. What other metalcore band can do that?!
As for standing out amongst Converge's incredible discography, in my opinion You Fail Me represents the pinnacle of the bands sound. I think this is the point where they really perfected themselves as a band. They never sounded tighter and more in tune to one another than on songs like Dropout and Heartless. This album also showcases the different sounds that Converge developed over the years, while Jane Doe is probably their most chaotic and intense album, You Fail Me shows how the band really evolved from an amazing chaotic, noisy metalcore band to one with a very distinct sound and feeling that has since carried on into every one of their albums. I think the production on this album captures frontman Jacob Bannon's characteristic barking growl better than any previous record as well as his weird half-clean singing on songs like Last Light and Hanging Moon. The overall tone of this thing, while still noisy, raw and chaotic sounds a bit fuller and more developed than on previous albums.
At the end of the day though, I'm still just comparing one untouchable hardcore classic to another. Converge have never done anything that I totally disliked (besides maybe releasing a bunch of splits with only one or two songs on each of them), I can jump in at any point in their discography and love what I'm listening to. They're just that good.
No comments:
Post a Comment