Metal Reviews

Formed by four somewhat disillusioned* musicians, Gospel are a hardcore band that will either go unfairly unnoticed, which would be a terrible thing for the music world, or will make a fairly large splash in the realms of progressive (or "post", if you prefer to call it that) hardcore. Why? Well they have done something that I haven't quite heard before in a band - Gospel have blended the extreme musical proficiency of progressive rock with the more texture-based style of post-rock, and on top of it they do it via hardcore.

I remember reading in a Mastodon interview an interesting analogy for their music - that their albums were like a bed, with the drummer being the frame, the bassist the mattress, and all of the fluffy stuff that makes the bed enjoyable the guitars and vocals. I mention this because it just really makes sense as a description for Gospel's debut. Their drummer, whose style reminds me of a cross between Mastodon's Brann Dailor and Tool's Danny Carrey and could probably give them a run for their money if he had to, provides the structures of the songs while the keyboards (yeah, in a hardcore album. Trust me, it works) and guitars blend together and wash over your ears in a style that reminds me of guitar driven post-rock bands such as the Red Sparowes. The bass acts sort of a middle-ground between the two, sometimes accentuating the rhythms or sometimes joining the blend of guitars and keyboards. I have a feeling a lot of this has to do with Converge's Kirk Ballou being behind the levers as the producer of the album, and he does an amazing job of this as the sound quality is perfect.

As I mentioned before, Gospel are a prog band. Just listen to the King Crimson style instrumental break of "Yr Electric Surge is Sweet", and they have a keyboardist. At the same time as your ears are being pleasured by a plethora of technical goodies though, it would be hard to listen to a song like "Golden Dawn" and not think of Isis, or their more post-rock flavoured disciples (Gospel lean more towards the floatier side rather than the heavy side). While Protest the Hero's Kezia makes me hesitate to declare The Moon is a Dead World the best debut of 2005, the two are certainly neck-and-neck. Either way its easy to sit back, relax and let this album engulph you.

* From an interview with the band: "Vinny Rosebloom: I don't think Prog is an underappreciated genre. I mean, look at all the bands like Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, etc., etc... they are f*ckin' huge, and I think most people who listen to Hardcore listen to them. "

Nah I haven't, I'm sort of new to this type of music. I'll listen to them when I get home. I did read your review thread, The Sammus Theory sounded kinda interesting

goddamn I use a lot of pointless adverbs >_<

I just listened to three of the songs on Bloodlet's myspace page and they were OK, their singer was kind of retarded sounding though.

I'm liking what I've heard of Snapcase so far though, but they don't remind me much of Gospel.

btw Kennothy do you like/have you heard any of the earlier metalcore bands like Botch, Coalesce, Converge or Shai Hulud?

The vocalist sounds a lot like the dude in Snapcase. I like Botch, I don't like the others.

Converge - Jane Doe

I'd like to preface this review by saying that I have heard Cryptopsy, Meshuggah, Strapping Young Lad, Neurosis, Anaal Nathrack, Origin, and most (but not all!) other bands that contend for heaviest or most intense on the planet. And having heard them I can make the following statement with a quite a bit of confidence:

Jane Doe is the heaviest and most intense album ever.

I don't think any other statement really conveys the intensity of Jane Doe accurately. If I said "most" it would imply that Converge are one of those bands that make it feel like a vice is being placed on my brain and tightened, when in reality it actively gives me a headache and makes my skull feel like it is melting. They might even be mistaken as just the leaders of the metalcore genre. They're much better than that. Kurt Ballou's guitar lines are akin to having red hot coals inserted into your ear, Jacob Bannon's demonic screams are perhaps the epitome of emotional catharsis, and the rhythm section of Ben Koller and Nate Newton hit you like an uppercut to the face. The one thing that remains constant throughout Jane Doe is that it is loud and cathartic, and it is not what 99% of the population would consider pleasant.

In fact the first time Jane Doe crushed my cerebellum, a year and a half ago when I was just discovering the wonders of underground metal, I didn't like it. I respected its intensity but it was simply too much for me, and I would always have to turn it off after a few songs because it never failed to give me a painful headache. But I still relistened to it every few months, to see if it was in fact as hellish as I remembered it, and, even after I got used to bands like Origin and The Dillinger Escape Plan, it still was. But then, after about ten or so listens spaced out over the course of a year, the insane genius that is Converge finally reached me: what really makes Jane Doe amazing is not only the intensity, but also the song variety and the way Converge sound so spontaneous playing such well thought out music.

While the first half of the album is fairly straightforward structure-wise, it does not lack variety. The blastbeat-filled opener "Concubine" starts the album off with a "kick you in the face" motif and is quickly followed by some Dillinger Escape Plan style staccato rhythms on "Fault and Fracture". The band even goes extremely simple and punky on "Homewrecker". The second half of the album, starting with the indescribably weird "Phoenix in Flight", is where Converge really prove that they are artists. "Thaw" is filled with such agony that every second of its four and a half minute length is painful to listen to, even more so than the rest of the album. The epic title track is so well written and arranged that it makes even bands with the "progressive" label attached to them sound primitive by comparison. Every second of its 13 minutes grabs your attention so forcefully that the song seems to end much faster than it should.

On Jane Doe, Converge have crafted a classic, extreme metal/hardcore album. It simply crushes everything else as far as intensity goes, the members of the band are amazing musicians as well as composers, and they never let their technical ability get in the way of the energy, feeling, and emotion in their music. Moral of the story: Converge are better than you.

Classic or if I had to rate it on how often I listen to it, 90/100

Jane Doe is the heaviest and most intense album ever.

It's got just as many ratings as Cynic's Focus on rateyourmusic.com and you gave that a classic... so nyeh! actually i've always written reviews and posted them there, but i just decided to start putting them here because I was bored at work. I'd write for a website as long as it was better than the last one I wrote for =\

EDIT: lol i tried to edit my last post and was like wtf its gone

85/100
www.myspace.com/gospel --> listen to them
I wish I could pretend to know more about which member plays which instrument but I can't find that on the internets and I'm still waiting for my copy of the album to come from amazon...

I'll post more reviews as I write them, you guys should post yours too

Siberian Dreamers are gay.

Eh?

Oh, hahahaha! I thought Misha changed his name! Sorry, dude.