Late yesterday I discovered that Converge had launched a full-album stream for All We Love We Leave Behind on YouTube. Originally, I intended only to include that piece of news in a post I was putting together with other new music streams that surfaced yesterday. But as I listened to the album and began attempting to describe briefly what I was hearing, the post began to take the shape of a review.
It’s not the kind of review I would normally write — I haven’t listened to the album multiple times, or made notes about what I was hearing, or sat back and attempted to collect my thoughts after putting some space between me and the music. Hell, I’m not even 100% sure that I’m matching up the songs with their correct titles, because there’s no index to the album stream that tells you for sure when one song stops and the next one starts — and given the dynamics within the songs and the nearly seamless flow from one to the next, it’s not always patently obvious (though the changing artwork is a signal).
But fuck it, I’m so caught up in what I’ve heard that I’m going with my near-stream-of-consciousness first impressions, and that’s that.
********
All We Love We Leave Behind will be released by Epitaph Records on October 9. In its “deluxe” limited-edition CD format, there are 17 songs (14 songs on the regular release), and that deluxe edition also includes a hardcover, clothbound book with 48 pages of full-color original art by vocalist Jacob Bannon. Honestly, I’ve been looking forward to this release almost as much for the artwork as for the music. In fact, I pre-ordered that expensive limited edition copy because of anticipation over the artwork, having heard nothing of the music. (You can see the variety of bundles and formats for the album at this location, where they can also be pre-ordered.)
But because of this full-album stream, the music is now available for all of us to hear in advance of the official release, and I unwittingly made a wise call in pre-ordering this baby. The stream not only includes the music, it also includes much of the individualized artwork that Jacob Bannon created for each song, and the art is amazing, as I suspected it would be. And the music? It’s equally amazing.
The songs turn out to be strikingly varied, from the chaotic, technically exuberant discordance of “Aimless Arrow” to the jet-fueled punk rampage of “Tresspasses” and “Sparrow’s Fall” to the mix of brutal sludge and swirling guitar leads in “Sadness Comes Home”, from the martial drum-and-bass hammering in “Empty On the Inside” to the jolting yet atmospheric “Glacial Pace” to the rifftastic stomp of “Veins and Veils”.
“Coral Blue” comes right out of left field as a mid-paced, hook-heavy, melodic crusher with a soulful guitar solo and a feedback fueled finish, and “Precipice” is as methodically brutal as anything I’ve heard from Converge.
As it starts, the title track almost comes as a relief. It’s low, slow, and massive, like a page out of a funeral doom playbook — until a powerful drum roll sends it off into a head-spinning swirl of guitar finger-tapping, bounding bass notes, and bone-breaking percussion. And only the dead could refrain from headbanging to the galvanic central riff in the closing track, “Predatory Glow”.
The music is unrelentingly heavy and almost as unrelentingly intense, with frequent moments of nearly uncontrolled violence and chaos as well as surprisingly memorable passages of emotionally charged melody. There are punchy riffs and hammering double-kicks, flights of freaked-out guitar pyrotechnics and rubbery bass crescendos, blast-furnace walls of noise and instrumentals that verge on post-metal. It’s an explosion of creativity that never seems calculated, pretentious, or anything less than completely honest and vital, as befits this band’s punk and hardcore roots.
At this point, it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: All of the instrumental performances are exceptional, and Jacob Bannon’s vocals are as passionate and scraped-raw as ever.
Converge has accomplished so much already in their long career that I find myself doubly amazed at the brilliance of this album. When will they drift into repetition? When will they have a letdown? When will they mail it in, instead of creating something that’s yet another imaginative step ahead, creating an album that borrows from many parts of the band’s career without sounding like any one of the previous albums I’ve heard?
That kind of thing has happened before to other excellent bands, and one day something like that may happen to Converge, but not on All We Love We Leave Behind. On All We Love, Converge have nailed another absolute winner. More than eighteen years into their storied career, this may be their best work yet. Listen and look:
7 Responses to “CONVERGE: “ALL WE LOVE WE LEAVE BEHIND””
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Might have to digest this one a bit more. I will say it’s certainly more dynamic and interesting than any previous album. Overall, I enjoyed this album as a whole far more than most of their past work. They may not have any big-hitting, immediately rewarding standout tracks like “Dark Horse” on the previous album, but the quality of each track is surely greater. Seems way less “samey” and repetitive. “Sum of all parts” kind of deal on this one, which is probably good in the long run.
Not to mention the art is fantastic as always.
This album really kept me riveted all the way through because the songs were so dynamically different, and I thought the ordering of the songs within the album really enhanced the magnetic attraction of the album as a single flowing work. I also have a feeling that the individual tracks, standing alone, will be growers — not that they aren’t powerful right from the first listen, but because so much happens within them that it will take more than a first listen to really plumb their depths.
Precisely. I think my problem was going into this listening a little too cavalier and taking Converge for granted. Wasn’t expecting a thinker/deeper listen. They’re known for their hardcore immediacy, but this is a far more progressive step forward for them, and a bit more metallic this time around. It’s definitely the first record where I came out of it wanting to listen again to fully grasp what I just listened to.
“More progressive” and “metallic” — good observations that I wish I had included in my impetuous review.
Eh, the off-the-cuff manner of this review is what intrigued me to keep reading. First impressions are just as interesting as pensive, carefully thought-out pieces somtimes. The raw emotion and reactions can be lost in a sea of thought on occassion, and in the case of Converge this method was refreshing and fitting.
Listened to the first two tracks again, I really need to absorb this at home on my headphones. Listening at work is a mistake I regret. This art is so damn impressive I may just go out and buy the CD when it comes out. I miss the record store, it’s been too long….
That special edition with the art book costs a pretty penny, but I’m such a sucker for Bannon’s work that I think it will be worth it, especially having now seen just a taste of what it holds in store through that video.