Converge - Axe to Fall
The undisputed kings of modern progressive hardcore
Picture a runaway bus exploding through the front window of a department store; sheets of glass, tattered clothes and the defenestrated limbs of mannequins erupting into the air... that's just the START of Axe To Fall. Converge are surely the undisputed kings of modern progressive hardcore. Since provoking one of heavy music's biggest double-takes in 2001 with their pioneering Jane Doe album, they have consistently stretched half a dozen already-extreme genres to near breaking point.
The production here is more brutal than ever and the musicianship, especially Ben Koller's drumming, is frequently breathtaking. As vitriolic as they are intelligent, the songs lose no fury in the pursuit of technicality and the band only relent slightly during the closing numbers, Cruel Bloom is a particularly outstanding, dark waltz, with Neurosis' Steve Von Till on vocals and betraying an apparent collective fondness for Tom Waits.
Recent releases have seen Converge increasingly call upon the skills of many friends and peers. Accordingly Axe To Fall features members of Entombed, Cave In, Hatebreed and Genghis Tron amongst others without diluting Converge's evolving but idiosyncratic sound. This is a brilliant, furious album that manages to be both misanthropic in its message yet therapeutic in its sheer catharsis. [Chris Cusack]