Axe To Fall - Converge
Axe To Fall Image
  • Summary: The latest album for the punk rock band features guest artists from such bands as Cave In, Genghis Tron, Neurosis, and Hatebreed.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 10
  2. Negative: 0 out of 10
  1. It's the core group that delivers the most astonishing displays of hardcore fury and progressive musical exploration on Axe to Fall
  2. The closest Converge has ever come to pure doom metal, Ballou's sustained chords, bent strings, and screeching lead fills are anchored by Newton's and Koller's disciplined approach, the chemistry more than apparent during the Big Black-esque break, during which all four members, well, converge in a way that has the rest of us marveling at not only how these guys manage to still sound so fresh on record, but actually get better with each one they put out.
  3. 60
    It's Converge's energy that impresses first, their brutal, full-blooded fury, the sheer physical assault; listen closer, however, and you'll find a group as inventive and progressive in their riffage as Slayer or Metallica at their early apex, a compulsive complexity to their chaos. [Feb 2010, p. 100]

See all 10 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 0 out of 5
  1. JonathanD
    10
    I have a question: Why aren't metal or punk publications ever cited at metacritic? They're the ones who would know most of all how FANTASTIC this record is! Converge is the band of the decade. Everything from Jane Doe till Axe to Fall has been nothing short of stellar. My highest recommendation for the progressive listener with an openness to hear something aggressive and powerful. Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  2. MartinN
    10
    Certain sites (cough cough Sputnikmusic! cough cough) like to ruin great bands overall scores on this site -- as they did to mastodon's new record, calling it "poor". silly silly, i say. it really is a shame that these critics seem to get off on saying bad things about great bands in a time when real art-as-music is few and far between. i wish i could somehow "throw out" their reviews and have someone with a bit more empathy and passion write one that would do them justice. rock is in its death-throws for quite some time now. we should all learn to appreciate these late masterpieces and gems that have been released since the mid-90's which may in factl diminish over the next decade (sadly... all styles have eventually become somewhat exhausted over a long enough time-line, i.e. the jazz/blues etc. styles, just as 17th century baroque/rococo styles became old-hat, and 19th century romanticism exhausted various forms, including the sonata, which many had consider the "jewel" of western music, however timeless) ...and what will come out of the ashes of "rock"? the answer is hidden somewhere in the greatness of groups like converge (or the flaming lips, or radiohead, or even the mars volta, to name a few)... it's hard to put your finger on a "new" sound or style before it has been codified or clearly defined. something's coming, fellow music lovers. i can't wait to hear what it is... all rock styles have begun to CONVERGE (hehe) in a no-holds-barred and overt manner, so perhaps we shouldn't be using ultra-specific genre-labeling in a genre that is built on a foundation that was already a hybrid. i call it "mutt music". 10 out of 10 for this group of talented musicians and sonic-bloodbath enthusiasts for forging ahead in a genre (rock, broadly) with so much at stake according to those with enough intuition to look to the future and ask, "what's next?" Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. 10
    This is the greatest album I have heard of Converge and it is the greatest thing I heard in 2009. It is raw and technical at the same time. Emotional and apocalyptic. There are few band that can create such a powerful and heavy masterpiece. Almost no double bass and blast drumming, yet the album is like bulldozer. Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

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