Converge
No Heroes

It's hard to say with how much anticipation I awaited this CD. I was waiting for Converge at the turning point.

I feared that they too had chosen to make stylistic evolution coincide with musical regression, following the minimalist turn of the masters Neurosis, marking time while stepping back.

"Jane Doe" had worn me out with its fierce agony; I had never experienced such tension, encapsulated in all its expressive forms in a single work. "You Fail Me" had left me staggered; the choice to emphasize the substance of music by reducing form to its bare bones had borne fruit but had channeled the sound experience into something controlled, perhaps rational in its nihilism.

I was waiting for Converge at the turning point. I saw the crossroads before them. Structuring or Destructuring. And they chose the third way. Hybridization.

They combined the scream of despair from "Jane Doe" with the bloody gaze of "You Fail Me". Everything in this album is hybrid, starting with the artwork: a shadow of a dove lunges toward us, freed from the stop imposed by the shadow of the hand that appeared on the previous album; behind it is a dial, the same that appeared behind the unknown soldier five years ago. The fan-like layout (the same as in Y.F.M.) encloses new indefinable figures of the unknown soldier (printed on the same cardboard as J.D.) and at its extremes, where two years ago we found “living everyday, dying everyday”, we have “their days are over, our nights are here”. The lyrics are as we left them, undivided among themselves, like a single poem.

But the most shocking hybrid of this experience is the music.

The adrenaline-pumping start (wisely titled Heartache) takes us back in time, to when pressing the play button erased our mental sanity in an instant, inexorably overwhelmed and torn apart by the entity called Concubine. Mid tempo and alien-speed outbursts return vilely to crush our bodies, while we hear Jacob Bannon's cries of fierce pain join our own.
And just when we expect the shockwave of this explosion with a new Fault and Fracture, instead we receive crazy splinters in pure Y.F.M. style; their names are Hellbound, Sacrifice and Vengeance. We kneel, pierced in every part of the body, bleeding pain from every pore. And not even five minutes have passed.

And here comes a most welcome return; Weight of the World is indeed a track in pure J.D. style (Hell to Pay), almost sludge in its slow and dragging advance; in its simplicity and brevity, it seems almost a bridging piece, inserted to lighten the tension. But unfortunately, it results in being multiplied rather than diminished. And certainly for our health, given the next three tracks, it might have been better if Converge had shown us some mercy. The title track (viewing the video is recommended) is perhaps the most "classic" piece of the CD; it is the Fault and Fracture that did not hit us earlier, which with its relentless progress returns to renew the sonic massacre that had been interrupted for a few minutes, with its alternation of roars and rustles. But the most shocking part of the album is yet to come.

Plagues has a very simple structure, almost drone-like in concept: it consists of two colossal riffs, alternating without interruption, eventually accompanied by the other instruments in a true catharsis. For almost five minutes we are deprived of the ability to breathe, such is the oppression this track creates. But it's just the door to the album's suite, Grim Heart/Black Rose. Its position certainly refers back to the title track of the previous album, and the second part of the song is also musically so; but in the first part, its cadenced and desperate progress takes us inexorably back to the song that concluded J.D. The choice to have it sung by a guest, Jonah Jenkins from Milligram, whose sick voice perfectly matches the atmosphere of defeat generated by the track, is interesting.

The album could very well end here, but instead, it continues with tracks not always on par with the first part. Noteworthy are Lonewolves, with a beautiful spoken vocal part, and Bare my Teeth, a rather unsettling track, as it seems in every aspect like a piece coming from the historic CD When Forever Comes Crashing.

After listening, all the elements that make this album a hybrid are clear: Jacob Bannon's voice maintains the dark setting of Y.F.M. and continues to emphasize the sudden drum stops, but in their absence, it resumes the cerebralism of J.D. that we loved so much. The guitar largely regains the gain that was completely eliminated in the previous CD and alternates very dry riffs with others fluid and alien in sound. The drums allow fewer outbursts and emphasize both the voice parts and the guitar parts much more; especially the number of insanely fast blast beats that characterized Y.F.M. is reduced. The bass is perhaps the most conservative element, played entirely with a pick and very punk.

I apologize for the obscenity and prolixity of this writing of mine, but I felt the need to review the latest chapter of this group, which changed my life.