4 out of 5

Label: Deathwish

Produced by: Various

There’s a bang-for-buck value at question with Unloved and Weeded Out. Originally a three-song release showing off the band’s changing style, leading in to Petitioning the Empty Sky, it was later amended with earlier tracks from random sources, and demos from When Forever Comes Crashing, plus some live cuts. So, yes, that makes it a compilation disc, and this one definitely covers years of change for Converge, meaning there’s the possibility of varying appeal throughout if you’re particular to one era or album.

For this listener, who finds those two albums of Converge’s interesting but not often sought out for relistens – I wasn’t a huge fan of Bannon’s high-pitched singing, or how the band was produced on those records – Unloved rather hits the spot. The first half is uneven, spanning that tumultuous time of mid to late 90s, but the three original Unloved tracks are intense, balancing punk and hardcore and burying the vocals in a way so as to move away from the distraction of Bannon’s “singing” at the time, and absolutely show off the mathy dynamics and driving bass and drums interplay that would carry through to Jane Doe and beyond. The 1995-era tracks are quality in this context – as singles – they’re just clearly a younger band, still standing out with stops-and-starts and intensity, but also slotting in to a less identifiable hardcore punk sound.

The demos are, actually, where it gets super interesting. Recorded by Ballou, we again find Bannon’s vocals buried in the rawness, and the musicality comes to the fore; these versions rather help to isolate everything that stuck out when listening to that disc, and brings forward things that were smoothed out in the production / mix. Yes, I would’ve signed this band also. But I can absolutely understand fans of the disc having the opposite feeling, of course; reactions to these songs are especially subjective, based on your feelings on the studio takes.

I personally find the live cuts rather pointless (they’re from Poacher Diaries), as they’re just volume and shouting and clipped music, but, sure, here’s a preview of how effing loud this band can be.

As I rarely revisit pre-Jane Doe Converge, I was expecting to slot this comp into that lesser-touched pile. However, I was very positively surprised by how it recontextualizes that era by isolating all the good and notable bits, with the result of encouraging relistens of related stuff. For people who are better, all-Converge-embracing fans than m’self, this might have less impact, because you already recognized the goodness, or maybe you already owned the comps and previous edition of the 3-song EP and whatnot. It’s not a starting point for Converge, for sure, rather an addendum that’s of lesser or greater value depending on your favorite releases.

An appreciated extra: The Deathwish liner notes contain complete lyrics (even for the demo tracks!) and credit the sources of the recordings. I rarely talk about Bannon’s lyrics; I appreciate that he’s been pretty consistent throughout in terms of being mindful of trying to sing about something, though I’d say his range of topics and ways to speak about them have grown, as we’re stuck with some similar religious / birth imagery and subject matter – relationship struggles, life struggles – during this time.