Converge
Petitioning The Empty Sky

THE REVIEW

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.