Converge

Metal and hardcore often get a bad rap from people who have no understanding of the music. A common misconception is that extreme heavy music is made by misguided angry young men for fellow misguided angry young men. There's an element of truth I guess, if only in that there seem to be few angry young women involved - but that's another subject entirely. Sure, the angry young men bit may fit, albeit awkwardly, but misguided? I don't think so.

Your more moronic strands may cater to a largely unthinking, slavish demographic (Slipknot anyone?) but that's generally just corporate nonsense. There's plenty more out there, with focused agendas, who have been chipping away at the edges of the great monolith of heavy music cliché. Acts with the same kind of integrity and fearlessness that staunch independents such as Fugazi have long preached.

Converge is one of these acts. It's a name that has been mentioned on the fringes of the heavy music world for a while now, but since the likes of Dillinger Escape Plan started talking them up, Converge have been gathering momentum. Like Dillinger they're a band words will not do justice to, but here goes...

Some bands use the techniques, the machinery of heavy music in an artificial manner. A heavy riff becomes a pop hook, distorted bass becomes a confection, death vocals are a clichéd and mannered affectation. Clearly what is missing is some sort of connection to the music, a life or death commitment to putting every fibre of ones being to work in order to communicate directly from the soul. This, after all, is the purpose of art. It's just rare that any sort of art, including music, actually achieves it.

And that's why I think some people misunderstand when they hear music like Converge through ignorant ears. That because it sounds angry, then these must be angry fellas. They mistake intensity and a sometimes overly earnest need to communicate it with pure malevolent rage. But, like anything, if you don't have the context with which to understand something then you haven't got a chance.

Like the aforementioned Dillinger, and the now split Coalesce, Converge polarise opinion utterly. As others have observed, the 'either love 'em or hate 'em' tag applies to these acts like no other. That's a good thing I reckon, as it's often those acts that push things forward, snapping others out of their complacent reverie as they happily and carelessly kick down convention in the name of artistic expression.

Converge achieve this with aplomb on their latest (and fourth) album, You Fail Me, released on ex-Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz' Epitaph label. It's an awesomely heart rending album, from the brief instrumental intro 'First Light' through the final, tempestuous bars of 'Hanging Moon'. What falls between is an emotional journey that will test your limits of endurance, as the Boston four piece constantly confound with their unbelievable compositions and unbending focus.

It's the kind of thing that comes from years of playing together (they formed in the early 1990s), slowly shedding outside influence as a unique sound is developed. Even more so than most vocalists, founding member Jacob Bannon is central to proceedings. His paint stripping utterings evoke all the heartache and agony of someone who feels too much. But, as Bannon has said, it is also redemptive music.

"These are our songs of failure - how we fail each other and how we fail ourselves. It's about standing up and taking responsibility. It's about facing that demon. It's about putting the practice of living in front of the act of dying every day. It's about surviving."

This message is communicated most directly on the title track, an unbelievably cathartic and crushing track. Around the halfway point, it begins to build a simple repeated refrain. This ascends in intensity until the pressure is almost unbearable. Guitarist Kurt Ballou contributes to this with slight changes in accent, while the rhythm section of Nate Newton (bass) and Ben Koller (drums) maintain a leaden rhythm. There's not a lot of heavy music around that goes this deep.

Another highlight is the similarly scarifying 'Last Light', in which Bannon implores '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'. A different sort of anthem, about gaining faith and holding onto it, it could well be Converge's theme song.

You Fail Me is a challenge, but it will reward you. As Brian Eno once said about Miles Davis' 1970's work, "It's faith music. If you believe in it, I'm sure it will work."

Gavin Bertram.