Weekly album: Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

2012 / Metallic hardcore

1. Aimless Arrow

2. Trespasses

3. Tender Abuse

4. Sadness Comes Home

5. Empty on the Inside

6. Sparrow's Fall

7. A Glacial Pace

8. Vicious Muse

9. Veins and Veils

10. Coral Blue

11. Shame in the Way

12. Precipice

13. All We Love We Leave Behind

14. Predatory Glow

Orostider: Converge is one of the bands I knew of for quite a while before actually familiarizing myself with them. Everyone hyped Converge to me at a time so I postponed checking it out and oh how I regret that decision now, although the late awakening to them might be one of the reasons I instantly fell in love with them. Like some people may have figured out already, I started my journey to the grindcore, hardcore and crust scene about a year before 'All We Love We Leave Behind' was released. If I had decided to check Converge before familiarizing myself with grindcore and hardcore, I would have possibly dismissed them entirely. 

Converge represents the complex school of metallic hardcore and some people even call them mathcore, although their vocalist stated: "I really don't know what mathcore is. Converge is an aggressive band. We have elements of hardcore, punk, and metal for sure. But I think trying to define our efforts and other bands with a generic subgenre name is counter productive. We all have something unique to offer and should be celebrated for those qualities rather than having them generalized for easy consumption." It's really hard to describe Converge due to their uniqueness. Interesting rhythmic work, creative riffs and hellish melodies all form a perfectly ordered chaos. 

Like Jacob himself stated, Converge are an aggressive band for sure. The vocals radiate frustration and the songs are built to pretty much maximize the fierceness. If aggression and frustration were the only things Converge offered, they could be a bit tiresome in a long run, but they too have softer side. On 'All We Love We Leave Behind' the softer side is seen in 'Coral Blue' and even though the title song is pretty fierce, it also shows the emotional and soft side. There aren't any major weak spots on the album, but if I had to name something that isn't completely functional, I'd pick the transition between 'Precipe' and title song. Both of them are amazing pieces and they belong together, but the pause between the songs and the change of sound is a bit weird.

'All We Love We Leave Behind' is definitely one of my all time favourite albums and Converge's other releases are also close to my heart. Alongside with this album, I recommend people to check out 'Axe to Fall' and 'No Heroes' because both of the albums fit together with this one. If 'All We Love We Leave Behind' sounds too clean and produced, their older albums, especially 'Jane Doe', their breakthrough album, are recommended. "To live the life you want. You've abandoned those in need. A necessary casualty. Or so you believe." 

btcarey: Converge is a band that has been suggested to me over the years that I’ve just never took the time to check out. For this reason I was pretty excited when Orostider chose Converge’s newest release as this Album of the Week, finally giving me an incentive to check out the band. To my dismay, I was left disappointed after my first couple play-throughs of the album.

“All We Love We Leave Behind” really just felt like a bunch styles and musical traits stuffed into one record, leaving the album as a whole lacking direction and flow. I understand that many people praise Converge for this crosswalk of styles but it felt too forced, like the band was just trying convey all their ideas rather than picking the good ones. I’m not much of a hardcore punk fan and while the actual music only showed slight similarities to the genre the clean vocals really felt out of place on many occasions (although I really dug the intro track “Aimless Arrow” and thought the clean vocals and music complemented each other well in this instance).

I am not saying that “All We Love We Leave Behind” is necessarily a bad album, to the contrary the record has actually gotten exceptional ratings, it’s just not my style. The musicians are obviously very talented and good at want they do. Despite the album as whole being mediocre there were some truly awesome moments as well, with certain tracks shining much brighter than the others.

If you’re a fan of hardcore punk, metalcore, or mathcore check this one out but for those of you with a more traditional taste in heavier genres, you may want to skip it.

Favorite Songs: “All We Love We Leave Behind” and “Sadness Comes Home”

tp5170: To be frank I was not able to get much out of this album and I was kind of afraid that this would be the case even before listening to it. The album is by no means bad and there are actually several interesting things to it. However it still happens to represent a musical style that I am not really fond of and I find the general flow of the album simply off-putting. 

Most of the songs on the album are high quality stuff and there is no shortage of complexity, rapid transitions and other tricks that make some parts of the album really enjoyable and interesting. On the other hand pure complexity alone doesn’t make for good songs and some of the songs seem to rely too heavily on mashing different gimmicks together for my taste. 

But all in all, ‘All We Love We Leave Behind’ is pretty interesting and I am happy that I have now heard it at least once, even though it wasn’t exactly my thing. I won’t probably listen to it again on my own, but I wouldn’t mind at all if I ever heard it again somewhere.  

Favorite song: A Glacial Pace

Kattroll: According to Orostider I've heard this album several times before this, but this time I got to press the play button myself and I actually liked it. One of the reasons is my current affection to Mørket, who listed Converge as one of their influences in an interview not long ago.

As for the music, the half-clean vocals sort of turn me off but the rest of the vocals are enjoyable. The music varies quite a lot and isn't dull at all, so this is something I could actually listen to more. The songs weren't too long, even though I tend to like lengthy and epic songs.