Covering all the Music You Didn't Know About Since '96

Okay so I admit this review is well over due. But just because I’ve been slacking off, doesn’t deride any of the importance of how truly epic and essential Converge’s seventh record release is. Jacob Bannon (singer) and Kurt Ballou (guitarist) are two of the most influential people in metal/hardcore/heavy music today, with Kurt Ballou having established himself as one of music’s most revered producers/engineers with his God City Studio a well-sought after destination. Ballou’s resume in the production, recording, and engineering realm is as impressive as his own musical one with a long resume that includes The Hope Conspiracy, pg. 99, Cave In, Modern Life is War, Blacklisted, Champion, Scars of Tomorrow, Orchid, and Paint it Black among many others. Indeed the group as a whole is a visceral auteur of heavy music, paving the way for many other experimental and chaotic bands to land into a scene that is welcoming, always moving, and rarely if ever stagnant. On “Axe to Fall”, Converge yet again expands their horizons with wavering and sober moments like “Cruel Bloom” featuring bluesy gravelly vocals sung by Steve Von Till (Neurosis) amid moist piano and ambient acoustic guitars. “Wretched Bloom” also features a guest vocalist in Genghis Tron’s Mookie Singerman who smoothly pours out a velvet of clean vocals that oddly complement the typical raging storm of Bannon’s ferocity. The album pours out buckets of emotion into a room that was once soaked with blood but is now drying, peeling off red-flecked paint chips like a million past childhoods wrought with self-destructive actions, something a song like the punk-fueled “Cutter” seems to cry out on. Converge are champions of everything heavy and prove their worthiness of the crown by dipping their quill into an inkwell of heavy rock, visceral chaotic metal, churning hardcore, and melodic heavy alternative art. “Axe to Fall” will fell an entire forest before it’s through rockin’ you out.

Racebannon has always been one of those influential bands that most of the newer kids to the scene haven’t acknowledged or heard of despite the fact that they easily were some of the very pioneers of chaotic post-metal and hardcore. Once again experimenting with the very notion of rock ‘n’ roll with a defiant lack of ‘breakdown’s and clichés, Racebannon returns after a four-year hiatus on their new label Southern Records with a release in “Acid or Blood” that shows up anything Mike Patton or Melt Banana could create. You didn’t think that new singer for Dillinger Escape Plan came up with his style all of his own do you? Well regardless, “Acid or Blood” shows off a band that is unafraid of doing something different on each and every release despite their fanbase. Often compared to the likes of Converge, Racebannon is so much more than that with a firm grip on abrasive, cerebral metal. Distortion-heavy guitars churn and curdle with bouts of noisy anarchy. Drum-wise, I rarely find a band more intriguing and inspiring—it’s not just a bunch of fills and time signature changes but they really use their percussion as an instrument all on its own. This is the most important heavy music release in 2008.

Listen to “Sister Fucker” [MP3]