Converge - Blood Moon

May 10, 2016 12:34 PM

Influential metallic hardcore act Converge are known for melding fast, vicious riffs with more experimental tendencies, as evident on their breakout record Jane Doe. At this year's Roadburn festival, Converge unveiled Blood Moon (recording by Frank Huang), an exploration of some of their more brooding and elaborate tunes (Coral Blue, Wretched World, Cruel Bloom feat. Steve Von Till) with an expanded band featuring Steven Brodsky of Cave In, Chelsea Wolfe (previously), and Ben Chisholm. Invisible Oranges investigates.
posted by Existential Dread (8 comments total)

I lived with Kurt for a bit in Boston during Converge's early years, but had completely lost track of both him and the band - glad to see they'e doing so well.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:39 PM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

i was at TRVE Brewing in denver which is super-metally and all the walls are black and their t-shirts all have skulls on them and there's a sign in the bathroom that says 'employees on duty must carve slayer into forearms before returning to work' and their draft system is set up to look like a satanic altar and the bartender asked if i had any music requests and i said 'Jane Doe' and he shook his head and was like 'nah man that's way too much for me'
posted by beerperson at 12:43 PM on May 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

. . . and the bartender asked if i had any music requests and i said 'Jane Doe' and he shook his head and was like 'nah man that's way too much for me'

That's awesome.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 1:01 PM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Call it old age (snobbism), but metalcore started to sound a bit silly to my ears somewhen in the last decade or so. Out of pure nostalgia I've listened to Converge latest record All We Love We Leave Behind one or two years back and noticed in astonishment that they still sounds very cool.
So now, whenever I'm in the mood for music of this particular brand, it's mostly always Converge.
posted by bigendian at 1:42 PM on May 10, 2016

They also played Jane Doe in its entirety live for the first time at Roadburn (once again, thank you Frank Huang), which was pretty cool.

I've been really into Baptists lately, which sound a bit like a stripped down Converge.

It seems like Kurt's work at Godcity might have as much, if not more, lasting influence on music than his band (and that's saying something)

Looking forward to spending a bunch of time with Blood Moon soon. Keep doing these music posts, E.D.!
posted by gwint at 1:55 PM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

I was at this festival but only spent a few minutes watching this set (it was book-end overlapped by two must-see sets for me). Glad it was recorded, knew I was missing out on something cool!

Edit: turns out I was standing next to the dude during this recording minutes before Blood Moon.
posted by Baphomet's Prime at 2:03 PM on May 10, 2016

Holy hell, Chelsea Wolfe's work with Ben Chisholm is fucking incredible. This is some seriously doomy shit.
posted by Existential Dread at 2:21 PM on May 10, 2016

I went and saw Converge for the 5th time on 4/20 in 2008. It got wild.
posted by gucci mane at 5:41 PM on May 10, 2016