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Rating:
If form anticipates content… that severed hand in the void of a noir background is the funeral announcement of the absolute negativity one prepares for at the moment of listening to this monolith of postmodern noise art.
Because the sonic explosion of the Bostonian Converge, in their first release for the folks at Epitaph, is organic and tribal, visceral and pure like dawn.
"First light" introduces us, cold and distorted, into an emotional alley of rare violence, unleashed in series by the following five tracks. It is not easy to listen to this album in its entirety. It's an extreme adventure that forces one into a constant, painful, apnea. Jacob Bannon's screaming is uncontrolled madness, still unmatched in today's very honest underground musical landscape.
To a lacerating guitar is added a dark, primitive, "mastodon-tic" rhythm section, pleasantly recalling the infernal glories of groups seminal to the post-hardcore movement; Neurosis, Cult of Luna, Isis, Callisto. But Converge are unique. They are metallic without metal ("Black cloud"), raw and surgical ("Drop out"), cerebral and malevolent ("You fail me"), wildly acoustic ("In her shadow").
Highly recommended for those seeking the extreme oblivion, without logic or metric, but with the non-commercial abnegation and artistic integrity of a band that makes compromises only with their own, urgent, anger. A tragic musical experience.
One endures with joy.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
02 Last Light (03:33)
I need you to be the strength of widows and soul survivors
I need you to be as fearless as new mothers and new fathers
I need you to be the hope of hearts who lost true love
I need you to be the might of their first kiss
I need a purpose and I need a reason
I need to know that there is trophy and meaning
to all that we lose and all we fight for
to all our loves and our wars
keep breathing
keep living
keep searching
keep pushing on
keep bleeding
keep healing
keep fading
keep shining on
this is for the hearts still beating
03 Black Cloud (02:19)
thousand miles
forgetting
anything
everything
wheels racing
black cloud gaining ground
engine roars
rain pours down
the chase is on
my black cloud
gaining ground
three years spent
outrunning
my demon
and her ring
keep moving
with engine heart
and boiled blood
i will push on down
my wounded roads
i can outrun
i will outrun you all
horsepower hope
find me a home
in brand new arms
that won't let go
racing on to my end
04 Drop Out (02:31)
amphetamine
raised her since three
he was a hope to be gutter king
both unraveled at their seams
that were never sewn
she never had a choice
they never had a chance
he never had a choice
they never had a chance
all their devils and all their demons
walk with me as they walked with them
all their devils and all their demons
haunting me as they haunted them
giving out
giving in
05 Hope Street (01:06)
keep on searching
keep on running
suicide eyes
just keep hunting
for new hearts
to break
for old wounds
to make
no one will break your fall
keep on moving
keep on hiding
in ripe new lives
you are destroying
finding comfort
in their wreckage
you kill new hope
with old pain
no one will break your fall
06 Heartless (02:28)
i'm stopping this slow death
by letters never sent
i'm killing one way romance
and its words never read
i'm leaving love's lost battles
to the vulture's need to feed
i'm leaving you
i'm leaving them
and learning to be me
heart is everything
heart is you
love is you
hell is you
loss is you
heartless
07 You Fail Me (05:37)
you fail me with every fatal crush
you fail me with every abandoned love
you fail me with your inferno fuck me eyes
that burn as fuel for my city and its neon lights
burn bright white line fever take them all
you fail me with your new dead end dream
you fail me with your pill box fantasy
you fail me as love's greatest war
that was never worth
you were never worth fighting for
dying living dying living dying everyday
living dying living dying living everyday
you think you are a poet
in your eyes you are a star
who lives through a fantasy of rising above
you think you're a victim
but you live as a drunk
that has never sacrificed that has never loved
you think you are tragic but i know you are lost
you have walked the fault lines
and you have crossed them all
this world doesn't fight you, you fight yourself
thinking we fail you you fail yourself
11 Death King (02:07)
let me live
leave me be
let me live
leave me
you haunt me
broken promise
two year mourning
dead ringer
old dead ending
new dead ends
in every sleep my blood boils
it is my sheep they follow
my flocks are falling out of love
dead ringer
old dead ending
new dead ends
you haunt me
in pine box days
in red nights coming
take your crown
stand your ground
plague queen
death king
13 Hanging Moon (04:36)
i keep paying
when you keep taking
please stop running
and just start living
me without you
i have learned to live without your light
that burned so bright
you are half the heart and half the will
hanging moon
haunting you
hanging moon
be my light in this world of darkness
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Other reviews
By 3poundsoflove
You Fail Me unequivocally marks the transition of Converge into the year of our Lord two-thousand-four.
It’s almost futile to go through the individual tracks of this album, because it is the whole that leaves a mark.
