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Confusion, mental, physical, spiritual. Again: the ancestral rage of anti-bourgeois revolution. And again confusion, the same that resides in our souls, the same that leads us to no longer recognize our feelings. So, desperate, we throw ourselves to the ground, curse, bang our heads against the wall, seek shelter in violence. Then flashes of rationality strike us suddenly almost as a joke, we calm down, peace returns.
I can't help but see myself, with all my conflicting feelings, when I listen to “Petitioning The Empty Sky”. Because here “becoming” is the word, the movement, the transformation, indeed, the true and proper confusion. Sealed through tempo changes, vocalizations that literally tear the air to convert into childish choruses, guitar architectures so spontaneous they seem tossed out in half a day, in a moment of creative ecstasy. The melody is sometimes thrown out boldly, other times it gets lost in chaos, and recognizing it in the riffing becomes the real pleasure. Sick solos, straitjacket scales, riffs taken from the Bay Area, raped, massacred, and transformed into a killer war machine.
It was 1997, the golden year of the Boston formation, right at the moment this jewel was released. The inspiration was at its peak, pulsing and dangerous. It is by now wanted that “Jane Doe” be the masterpiece of Jacob Bannon's group, the 2001 album that preceded the release of “You Fail Me”. Alright, okay. I too go crazy when I listen to the schizophrenia of “Concubine”, or the veiled poetry of “The Broken View”. But when I put on “The Saddest Day” it's not the same, no. At least 17 tempo changes (I counted them) in a "mere" 7-minute song. Sure, the artistic maturity hasn't arrived yet, right. But here is the soul of the group, true, sincere. This is the album I most recommend to anyone wanting to exorcise their own “confusion”.
The Converge are great. Great for the following and wonderful "When Forever Comes Crashing" of 1998, great for “Jane Doe” of 2001. But when I put on “Petitioning The Empty Sky” again, I see everything they managed to say in the metal-core scene, I see the future of hardcore, and this future, slowly, they are building too (and especially) themselves. Don't believe it? Listen to it, “The Saddest Day”. Listen to “Forsaken”, or “Color Me Blood Red”. The confusion starts here.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
02 Forsaken (02:22)
The cedar doesn't do much for these memories
I am as cold as the monuments you left for me
And another one passes in the evening
A knee deep grave and the two that raised
and a tin box for the two that I loved
And I carry on
Please lay out my best suit for me
and tell me every word you want to hear
Every word you have said to yourself to be perfect in the end
and I carry on
A tin box for the two that loved
Carry on
03 Albatross (01:51)
Five lives dead and gone
We breathe out of key and wonder
if you can hear the awkwardness in these tremors
Draining, cutting this cancer out
Teeth gaping yet I make no sound
Six hammers and one sky, falling
Five lives dead and gone
Mediocrity in believing in everything
and this lack of will has buried them forever
04 Dead (03:07)
You never loved me
now I cannot lie down in that bed
I cannot lie down in all of those old fears
I haven't slept, singe the colors from my glances
If I was bleeding, would you tell me?
If I was speaking, would you hear me?
You asked for everything but never loved
If I was praying, would you kill me?
You never loved me
Dead
05 Shingles (04:14)
I float above and these wings catch, and your sky hold you so beautiful
And I understand if all this comes falling, because my sky already has
And my head bows, all of this I know
And all of your precious love, you can paint as light as you see
And you can make reasons for everything
But as long as I dream some thing will always be
Gun in my mouth, I pray for the sunshine
Gun in my mouth, I pray for the sunshine
07 Farewell Note to This City (05:22)
Disenchanting the romantic
This is the real, this is the shame
These limbs search feverishly for the gift of gravity
Coarse twine tears clean
And I have thought about this very instance for all time
Decades longer than you or I
Crimson comforting, scorching this flesh
giving its caring for me
And I have thought about these moments for all time
dangling from a silver lining
these lungs welcome the crimson tide of misfortune
Hell to pay
This is my farewell to this city
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