For the uninitiated, the hybrid sub-genre ‘metalcore’ is punk played with the cartoonish evil of metal, crossed with metal played by punk delinquents. It’s the best of both worlds, and a squalid creation dreamt up by Converge, Boston’s most degenerate band. At this point we should be toasting another album of peerless intensity, but by trading nonsensical time signatures and atonal bursts for fluidity and stadium rock, they’ve subtracted from their former wretchedness. Though dependably abrasive, anthems of doomed youth just aren’t as brilliantly nihilistic when they sound like they’ve got AC/DC’s Angus Young on guitar.



John Calvert

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