I had never bothered to check these guys out because I just figured that they would be bad hardcore. I was wrong. NOT CRAP

Converge are amazing.

Extremely thoughtful yet over the top abrasive. I would highly recommend seeing them in a small club, as they give Goat-era Jesus Lizard a run for their money in terms of great and intense performance.

I saw them play CBGB's about two years ago and was really laughing in joy and amazement through most of their set. Standing there in the middle of the pit area, ears ringing at top volume and just smiling and laughing. They kept blowing me away.

Really, they are a great band and they are getting better.

= Justin

Converge are punishingly good. I love them. NOT CRAP.

I saw them in Montreal recently, in a club that was oversold, and about 430 were jammed packed into an extremely hot basement area. It was a ton of fun, people were climbing on the ceiling and dropping from above and just going nuts and having a good time in general.

That being said, I dont think their new album is very good, and they dont sound that good live honestly. The guitar is more clanky live than that deep rich sound you hear on their records. They seem to polish things up a lot in the studio, but they might have just been having a bad night. It was hard to tell.

Even with these few things, they are, or were at one point, the best metal/hardcore band around and I think these boys from Boston deserve a Not Crap.

I despise the hardcore asthetic that has saturated everything recently.

I think Converge is one of the few, if not the only "hardcore" bands that has any right to say they have a breath of life left in them.

i enjoy the fact that Kurt Ballou decided to make his records not sound like every other band, (i.e. Scooped mids on guitars, "blippy" kick drums/triggers, etc)

i LOVE the recordings on Jane Doe and You Fail Me.

The worst thing they did on the new record was posting the lyrics..

like i said, i think theyre one of the only bands moving forward in a genre that has undeniably hit a wall, and it really disappoints me that if i ever wanted to see them again, i'd have to be shoulder to shoulder with about 6-800 shitheads in girl pants X's on their hands.

NOT CRAP.

Jane Doe was my album of the year in whatever year it came out.

-Posting Drunk,
Andrew Wiggins

i just got Jane Doe a couple of weeks ago by recommendation of a buddy of mine, and I was blown away. These guys are super tight and it's a great sounding album.

Im extra impressed with the drumming, it's just a flowing stream of awesome fills

I can't that riff from Fault and Fracture out of my head, you know which one

what's cool is that if you count, most all of their songs are in 4/4 time, but they put the emphasis almost exclusively on off beats, rarely on 1, so you'd swear they were playing in odd times

Converge is a great band. I'd say they're even better live (especially crammed into a small space as noted). Their past 3 records have risen well above their "genre" and I think they'll hold up quite well once the trend is over. Before that, they were a mediocre hardcore band. Were I to rate their records numerically:

You Fail Me - 8
Great riffs, good songs, good dynamic variety (there's an acoustic song) but lacking a bit in the overall passion of it that will stand up over time. Once I got through the riffs, there just wasn't as much left for me as I had hoped. And uninspired cover art from someone who's capable of much more. I imagine I'm just spoiled from Jane Doe.

Jane Doe - 10 (if not 11 on a scale of 10)
Exceedingly great, Greater than greatest. Ok, that's a bit much. I'll settle on perfect. For a record of its type, I'm not sure of any thing I could want from it that it doesn't give me upon listening. This record is unrelenting like few others. Start to finish it is fast, loud, balls-out, and glorious.

When Forever Comes Crashing - 6
A respectable record, but nothing near what they have become. More rooted in typical hardcore of the day and recorded by Steve "Obvious Hearing Loss" Austin (which doesn't sound great, but its lightyears ahead of his recordings of his own band, Today is the Day).

Before those 3, Converge is a mediocre band with a few shining moments here and there. Oh, and the EPs they put out between Forever... and Jane Doe are pretty good as well.

I agree with Wiggins. Converge fits into but ultimately transcends a nearly bankrupt genre. By that definition, but also because they are genuinely great, they are far from crap.

"The Saddest Day" is probably the greatest metal/hardcore song ever written.

I'm not the biggest fan of 'Jane Doe', but as a whole, not crap whatsoever.

well, they're real music fans, and are drawing from a wider pool than most of those bands.

crap