3 out of 5

Produced by: Kurt Ballou

Label: Deathwish

Hey y’all!  It’s me, the naysayer, here again to espouse opinions maybe just ’cause they’re contrary!  Today’s topic: Converge’s widely celebrated release, All We Love We Leave Behind.  Let’s see what nonsense I can spit in poor justification of my review!  Weeeee

…Kay.  I’ve effectively lampshaded this thing.  So: it’s Converge, which means we’re guaranteed that, if recorded by Kurt Ballou – which this was – it’s going to sound vicious, rough, and phenomenal.  Check.  Double Bass drums and machine gun riffs have ne’er sounded as volatile in a producer’s hands.  We also know that the band is comprised of ridiculously skillful artists across the board, who deliver manic punk / hardcore complexity with astonishing consistency.  Check again: All We Love has a bevy of standout jaw-droppers, and in between it is far from filler.  The problem is more that it doesn’t feel like the band had a clear vision of what they wanted the album to be.  There’s Jacob Bannon’s stated intent of crafting a more personal vision, which results in tracks where you can actually discern his words, and that effectively blend Converge’s monstrosity with more ear-endearing choruses – a combo which frankly results in some amazing tracks.  But there are also your “typical” Converge math explosions, which never cease to astound.  And then, perhaps to bridge these styles, we get several less-than -two-minute tracks which barrel out with punishing enthusiam before winding (relatively) down to sludgier riffing.  Are these tracks good?  Yup.  They freaking rock.  Alas, despite establishing a cadence that shuffles between these modes equally, they don’t actually sequence together well.  It feels like we’re listening to three separate albums.  A lot of the positive reviews praised this as the disc being, essentially, all singles, and I don’t necessarily disagree, but it creates such a wall of almost incompatibility track to track that I find the album, on the whole, not something that I really get in to.  Individually, any song stands toe to toe with genre peers’ offerings and would likely win the metal battle, and perhaps rearranged, the album would be a completely different experience.  But because the very approach to each style feels so distinct, I’m not sure if that would actually be a solve.

The plus side is that, being all singles, I do revisit these tracks often; some of them are truly mini masterpieces.  Not being able to wrap my head around the disc as a whole, though, is enough of a knock to my rating system to balance out the experience as an average one.