Modern Classic: Converge - “Jane Doe”

I can think of very few bands as unique as Converge. The signature raw production, the underground sounding powerful guitars, to Jacab Bannon’s high scream, no one has been able to fully reproduce the sound, although the influence on many bands can be seen.

“Jane Doe” starts off with a short, action packed song that’s under two minutes long. The rest of the songs vary in length from the standard three to four minute songs that grab you and shake you down, to the super short bursts that leave you wondering what you were hit by. The final song is an eleven minute epic, and a perfect album closer.

Moments of metal are well hidden under the jagged chords. If one listens carefully, there are a few moments where you can actually hear the Slayer influence. Was the blast beat in the first song "Concubine" grabbed from death metal? Whether it was remains to be seen, but the spin that Converge puts on it with the other instruments seems to have convinced more than a few other jagged metalcore styled bands to use blast beats as well.

Delving deeper into the album, you can hear a smokey, dirty, dingy bar rock atmosphere around some of the songs. It’s truly and underground influence that comes from something more than music.

This is the album we needed to usher in the new millennium. It’s also the only album so far to get a perfect rating from myself (although how much that’s worth remains to be seen). Could another album get a 10/10 from me? I’ve often debated whether the album “Annihilation Of The Wicked” by Nile deserves such a rating. Perhaps in the future, we’ll see.

10/10

Converge
Epitaph Records
Converge At Epitaph Records
Converge At Wikipedia