So Converge, right? These dudes from Massachusetts have been around forever, since 1990, basically perfecting the art of making your ears bleed in the most beautiful way possible. They’re one of those bands that helped define what we now call metalcore, but back then they were just pissed off hardcore kids with some serious technical chops and a need to experiment. By the time Jane Doe rolled around in 2001, they’d locked into their classic lineup with Jacob Bannon doing his trademark screaming, Kurt Ballou making his guitar sound like a chainsaw having an existential crisis, and the rhythm section of Nate Newton and Ben Koller holding down the chaos.
Jane Doe is basically the sound of a relationship completely falling apart, but instead of writing sad songs about it, Bannon decided to channel all that rage and heartbreak into something that sounds like the world ending. The album kicks off with “Concubine,” which is basically 79 seconds of pure violence that lets you know exactly what you’re in for. Then you get tracks like “Distance and Meaning” and “Fault and Fracture” that swing between technical precision and complete emotional meltdown. The whole thing builds up to the 11-minute title track that closes the album, which is this massive, sprawling nightmare that somehow manages to be both beautiful and completely devastating. What makes this album special isn’t just that it’s heavy, it’s that it’s actually about something real, when most hardcore bands were still yelling about straight edge or society or whatever.
You should check this album out because it basically rewrote the rules for what heavy music could be. It’s got that perfect combination of technical skill and raw emotion that influenced basically every good metalcore band that came after. Plus, that cover art by Bannon himself has become one of the most iconic images in heavy music, you’ve probably seen it on a million t-shirts and patches. It’s one of those albums that sounds just as fresh and brutal now as it did 20+ years ago, which is saying something in a genre that moves pretty fast.