For the last decade or so, Boston’s Converge has made a career of cranking out masterpieces and winning over listeners of metal, hardcore, and noise music alike. On their latest offering, ‘You Fail Me,’ they continue with time-tested lyrical themes of abandonment, betrayal, and desolation, but explore new avenues of musical expression that add the album to the ranks of previous triumphs like 2001’s ‘Jane Doe’ and 1997’s ‘Petitioning The Empty Sky.’
Upon pressing ‘play,’ a connoisseur of the band’s earlier work would expect a burst of diabolic clamor demanding his or her attention within seconds. But ‘First Light’ introduces the proceedings with the sound of a lone guitar, its mourning tones emanating from what sounds like a deep, hollow cavern. The brutality is merely delayed however, as ‘Last Light,’ presumably the counterpart to the prelude, kicks in after a minute.
Ben Koller’s tightly-wound drumming, Nate Newton’s distorted bass rumble, and Jacob Bannon’s impassioned bellows enter all at once, as Bannon commands through what sounds akin to an amplified Walkie-Talkie, “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!”
The whole picture strikes as disorienting, but it’s probably intentional. For a couple seconds, Koller seems out of sync with Newton and guitarist Kurt Ballou, and his frenetic opening groove is obscured as a result of not being quite in the pocket. Also, Bannon’s vocals, which aren’t always rhythmically accurate to begin with, crowd out the mix and further blur the focus because of the heavy distortion placed on them. This may be perplexing upon first spin, but the adventurous listener accepts that it’s all part of the band’s twisted vision- to confront ugliness head-on, almost to the point of embracing it, and let the music reflect it no matter how messy the music gets.
Tunes like ‘Black Cloud’ and ‘Eagles Become Vultures’ also demonstrate the group’s ability to put this aesthetic into action. On these songs, their musicianship is tight and fast, but loose enough to straddle the line between just barely keeping it together and losing it, which mirrors the general mood of Bannon’s dismal, anxiety-ridden lyrics. In the former, the band races at Slayer-like tempos while he screeches of running away from his “demon.” “Keep moving/ With engine heart / And boiled blood,” he screams, as the music suddenly shifts into a more raunchy swing feel. In the beginning of the latter, Koller pummels out a barely comprehensible fill, ushering in the roaring guitars, which give the song form.
What truly sets this record apart from its predecessors, however, is the use of textures and rhythmic patterns that contrast drastically with most of the band’s older material. The title track is a dirge that takes its time as it sloshes along, with choruses that reveal dissonances brought on by the many guitar overdubs, before finally hitting its stride. “You fail me with every fatal crush/ You fail me with every abandoned love,” Bannon belts out over the sea of guitars and crashing noise.
The most alarming surprises come during the last two songs, as if they decided to save the weirdest for last. ‘In Her Blood’ is actually danceable, and one of the strongest songs on the record. About halfway through, Koller and Newton begin playing a deceptively simple mid-tempo rock beat, but with little glitches at the end of every measure to throw the listener, or anyone who would actually try to dance to their music, off. ‘Hanging Moon’ brings back the heavy vocal distortion from ‘Last Light’ and puts it over a faster beat that sounds like something from Fugazi’s ‘Argument’ album. Shakers and metallic percussion create a cacophony in the background while Bannon releases the last of his demons, shouting over offbeat accents.
Like an awkward phone conversation, it all ends so oddly and suddenly, as if the band doesn’t want the listener to have any sense of closure. Nothing gets resolved, and no one changes for the better, but they wouldn’t have it any other way. |