metalcore

Record #991: Converge – Jane Doe (2001)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As compulsively as I buy records, if vinyl copies of an album are prohibitively expensive, it’s often easier to pretend it just doesn’t exist. But when you’re dealing with a record as monumental as Converge’s Jane Doe, that ignorance is pretty hard to feign. It is a singular masterpiece in the world of heavy music, offering up a record that is superlative in every aspect—including asking price.

But my wife and I have been working our asses off lately, and we decided we deserved to give ourselves a bonus. The first thing I did was head to Discogs to see what legendary and outrageously priced record I might finally be able to afford. It wasn’t a hard decision to make. And even as much as I paid for it (not quite a hundred, but close enough to sting), it’s worth every penny.

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Record #970: Hopesfall – The Satellite Years (2002)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Let me offer up a disclaimer: there are tons of people for whom this is a foundational record. I am not one of them. My introduction to Hopesfall was 2018’s Arbiter, but their back catalogue was rife with prohibitively high vinyl prices (my Achilles’ heel). When I saw them at Furnace Fest in 2021 though, it made me a believer. It might have taken a bit for me to pull the trigger on this (pricey) reissue, but I’m glad I did.

Where much of the Christian-adjacent early 2000’s metalcore has not aged very well, The Satellite Years might actually look better in the light of hindsight, thanks to a generous amount of HUM style space rock punctuating their riffs and breakdowns (and yeah, Matt Talbot even produced it).

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Record #912: LLNN – Unmaker (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Sometimes, you just need some music that will crush you. Times like when you’ve been fighting a weird illness and are sitting at home in a fog of post-blood-draw fatigue as you wait to hear the results of your bloodwork. That’s a highly specific mood, and it’s hardly the only feeling that calls for demolitions-grade heavy music.

But whatever causes that mood to strikes, LLNN is just what the doctor ordered. Unmaker, the third album from the Copenhagen quartet, is a gut-wrenching bit of dark, sludgy metal so hefty that it should come with a lift warning.

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Record #899: Converge – You Fail Me Redux (2004/2016)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’ve been carrying a shameful secret: I’ve never gotten into Converge.

Barring Bloodmoon, if you count that as a Converge album (I don’t), I’ve spent precious little time with the legendary metalcore band’s catalog. However, this is entirely due to the economics of Converge vinyl, most of which sell for well over $50. It’s been far more affordable for me to just ignore them.

But recently while browsing, I spied a cheap copy of You Fail Me Redux, a remixed version of their 2004 record. I dropped the cash on reputation alone, and it’s been worth every penny.

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Record #884: He Is Legend – I Am Hollywood (2004)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

2004 was a different time, man. Asymmetrical haircuts were flatironed in the front and hairsprayed in the back for maximum volume. Lopsided liprings and bandanas (or, briefly, surgical masks) were must-have accessories for off-center t-shirts and jeans that couldn’t be tighter if they were painted on. It all looked ridiculous in public, of course, but it didn’t matter: it was all constructed to look best from the MySpace Angle™, which was the ultimate arbiter of clout.

I Am Hollywood probably isn’t the Most Scene record of that era, but its chaotic genre-hopping and anything-goes grab bag of pop culture references is perhaps the most emblematic record for the hyperactive attention deficit of the early 2000s scene.

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Record #861: Heriot – Profound Morality (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In feudal England, a heriot was a tribute paid to the lord of the land when a serf passed away. It was an undeniably oppressive practice, robbing poor families now bereft for the benefit of the already wealthy tyrant of the land. The heavy outfit Heriot from the UK practices a similar form of oppression, but in the form of their sonics.

One of my go-to phrases in describing music is “oppressively heavy.” But when I first heard Heriot, I realized that I have not known what it means to be so heavy that it’s oppressive. This is the kind of sonic density that squeezes your skull, that crushes your bones. It’s the sort of heaviness that dominates your attention and ceases the existence of all else.

Profound Morality, their debut, is only eighteen minutes long, but it leaves an impact crater far larger than its physical size, thanks to its unrelenting mixture of metalcore, industrial, post metal, old school hardcore, and even some glimmers of nu-metal.

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Record #719: The Chariot – Everything is Alive, Everything is Breathing, Nothing is Dead, Nothing is Bleeding (2004)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

For a certain subset of music fans within a certain age, there are few bands as important as The Chariot. For former scene kids who put their girl jeans through their paces two-stepping in the church gym or muddied in the mosh pits of Cornerstone Music Festival, The Chariot represents the absolute epitome of mid-2000s Christcore.

And a decade and a half later, their debut record, Everything is Alive, Everything is Breathing, Nothing is Dead, Nothing is Bleeding is still every bit as chaotic and cathartic as it was back then, containing the blueprint for every riff, breakdown, and fist-pounding one-liners that throngs of metalcore bands are still trying to recapture.

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Record #693: Anodyne – Salo EP (2003)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In the record buying community, every once in a while you might get a surprise. In this case, I had ordered a copy of post-hardcore legends Quicksand 2017 album Interiors, and was surprised to find that the seller had also included this ten inch.

Knowing nothing about the group, I popped it on the platter and gave it a spin.

What ensued was 23 minutes of as brutal and chaotic mathcore as I’ve ever heard.

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