Converge - The Dusk in Us

Converge are one of those stylistic pioneers like Meshuggah or Godspeed You! Black Emperor who inspired so many to try to copy them (metalcore/post-hardcore in Converge’s case) while still none of their imitators can quite accomplish what makes their godfathers so unique. This isn’t to say there haven’t been excellent bands inspired by Meshuggah’s avant garde progressive metal (like Animals as Leaders) or Godspeed’s tense post-rock (like This Will Destroy You) or Converge’s metalcore (like The Dillinger Escape Plan or Code Orange), but something about what these pioneers do seems to be un-duplicateable. For Meshuggah it’s the constantly sinister mood, for Converge it’s the ability to weave moving pleas of sorrow into explosions of unchecked anger and amplifier abuse.

For a band that hasn’t departed too far from their genre of comfort, Converge sound unusually fresh and vital on each release, not so much stagnating as perfecting their practice of channeling all sorts of personal and extra-personal agony into as cacophonous and stunning of a push-back as they can. And The Dusk in Us, although a delayed follow-up to 2012′s All We Love We Leave Behind, miraculously finds Converge further mastering themselves.

The introductory track, “A Single Tear” packages nicely much of what sets Converge apart into four persuasive minutes that immediately declare their position in Converge’s and only Converge’s arsenal, with furious hardcore shouts supported with committed throat-grating backbone from Jacob Bannon and off-the-wall string battery by Kurt Ballou leading into emotive hardcore gasping and guitar echo. From there, already in top gear, Converge continue to spasmically blast their way through impassioned hardcore punchers like the stone-dissolving “Under Duress” and the expert harnessing of wild guitar feedback all the way to the album’s midpoint on “I Can Tell You About Pain”. 

The album’s title track sees the band channeling a pensive, moody catharsis similar to that of Jane Doe’s title track and much more confined than the preceding chaotic onslaught, but a tasteful change of pace and a highlight at the album’s halfway point. Until the final two songs on the record, Converge proceed as usual through a series of expectable violent hardcore thrashers that follow the blueprint already established by the first half of the album, which, to some, might drag on. I did personally find the repeated refrain on “Wildlife” notably infectious, the guitar wailing on “Trigger” significantly savory and the quickly-induced panic on the efficient “Cannibals” worthy of head-banging.

“Thousands of Miles Between Us“ and “Reptilian“ finish the album with a pensive segue into a more unsympathetic mirror to the album’s opener that rounds the album off as a cohesive experience in Converge’s outlook on the world. It’s an excellent finish to an album full of massive anger and relentless expression of its multiple facets.

The only problem coming with this album is that it has predecessors on which the band has trod its path before, and while I’m sure many of the music critics Converge has been able to woo with their poetic aggression on past records might clamor for the band to have experimented or switched it up more on an album coming after a five-year gap in their career, Converge have shown that with few others matching their hardcore intensity their continuation with their established style is still exciting and a necessary tutorial for the numerous groups they’ve fathered and a treat for the fans of the scene they’ve fostered. If the worst thing about The Dusk in Us is that it’s stylistically similar to Converge’s incredible back catalog, it’s a problem that’s probably gladly worn.