First things first. Converge were absolutely not “goofing off” when they were recording at Q Division Studios in Somerville, Massachusetts. As for being “way too loud”, well, maybe someone had a point.
In 2001, the band had landed a deal at the studio to use the bigger of their two rooms to record their follow-up to 1998’s When Forever Comes Crashing. That was until soft rock enthusiast James Taylor paid the full rate to use that room, meaning the Salem quintet were relegated to Studio B.
“He kept sending his engineer over to tell us to be quiet,” bassist Nate Newton told Decibel. “‘Mr. Taylor is trying to record vocal tracks and you guys are goofing off and being way too loud over here.’ He had already knocked us into the smaller room, too, but that’s fine. I don’t really care.”
The album – their last as a five-piece with Bane guitarist Aaron Dalbec – was titled Jane Doe, a terrifyingly abrasive release which became the standard against which all hardcore and metalcore albums would be measured.
It sounds like chaos and torment, but deliberately so. The album was fastidiously demoed before they recorded the album proper with producer Matthew Ellard.
For vocalist Jacob Bannon, it was a chance to channel a disintegrating relationship into his lyrics, particularly on the album’s abrasive opening song Concubine.
“Writing lyrics is both deeply cathartic and excruciating,” Bannon wrote on Substack. “It feels like a lightning strike when I manage to capture emotions I don’t have words for in everyday life. I imagine that’s true for other writers as well.”
“I was certainly embracing the emotional chaos,” he told Metal Hammer. “I recall recording some vocals in the dark at Fort Apache studio on the stage where they did these live sessions. It was an odd feeling to be in this room in pitch black, alone. It was kind of apt for the material.”
It’s a very desperate record, and for me, a very tragic record from a really, really low point in my life.
Jacob Bannon
One can only imagine the scene that took place in that darkened room. The song is 79 seconds of raw, catharsis, Bannon’s unfettered, feral vocal performance underpinned by Ben Koller’s frantically paced drumming, Newton’s unsettling rumble and Ballou’s endlessly inventive guitar playing.
“All the subject matter is personal subject matter I felt the need to get out there in an artistic way,” he told Canada’s Exclaim!. “Stuff I didn’t need in me anymore. I use art and music for that purpose. I mean, how many death metal records have celebratory titles? You don’t have Corpsegrinder Fisher writing about getting a new puppy.”
While his perspective on acquiring an adorable pet would be a compelling listen, the opening song certainly lays a blueprint for Jane Doe as a whole, which Bannon describes as a “desperate record”.
“It’s dealing with loss, the search for hope and desperation,” he continues. “It’s a very desperate record, and for me, I guess, a very tragic record from a really, really low point in my life. It’s about coping with that, dealing with that, trying to find some sort of resolve in that.”
It’s been a long time since Stormhammer dropped 2019’s epic Seven Seals. Having snuck its way into my top ten that year, Seven Seals proved to be one of the band’s best records, and one of the best power metal records of 2019. With a diverse vocal range, Matthias Kupka lent his voice to that record better than the other eighty vocalists mic-ing it for Stormhammer. It helps that the band put together a fluid record for a change, merging the blasty with the powery and the epic with the sappy. So, what have these German cheese grinders been up to for the last seven years? Oh, you know, hiring a new vocalist. Oh, and an entire new lineup around founding bassist Horst Tessmann. So much for dynasties.