Label Q&A: Deathwish Inc.

The self-owned hardcore label discusses its start, its distinct visual style, and the less-than-glamorous side of running a business.

Interview: Salem metalcore vets Converge send home the guests for an explosive new album

This content appears in ALARM #40. Subscribe here to get your copy!

Converge: All We Love We Leave Behind (Epitaph, 10/9/12)

“Sadness Comes Home”

Converge: “Sadness Comes Home”

Being one of the most consistently devastating and innovative hardcore bands on the planet doesn’t come easy. In fact, it requires countless hours of hard work, a highly disciplined work ethic, and a level of stamina that even the youngest punks in the game can’t always muster.

For nearly 20 years, Salem, Massachusetts-based metalcore titan Converge has continually pushed its intense sound to new and progressively head-spinning extremes, hammering out 90-second explosions of speed and energy on one track, while delving into a gut-wrenching mixture of emotion and melody the next. Though expectations are best left wide open when approaching a new album from the group, two things remain constant: it’ll never be half-assed, and it most certainly won’t be boring.

Converge’s Jacob Bannon in “Rungs in a Ladder”: “I’m not ready to find that peace yet”

Converge: All We Love We Leave BehindConverge: All We Love We Leave Behind (Epitaph, 10/9/12)

Vocalist Jacob Bannon, frontman of Converge, balances a career of music, fine art, and business. His raw vocals belie a depth, beyond the bleeding paint and canvas of tattoos, explored in the short documentary “Rungs in a Ladder.”

A twelve-minute meditation on life, meaning, and intention, “Rungs in a Ladder” is an eloquent creative manifesto — the musings of someone fighting insecurity, staying active, and dealing with being out in the open when he really just wanted to “be a bass player or a drummer…to be completely anonymous.”

Check out “Rungs in a Ladder,” directed by Ian McFarland.

Converge

Video: Converge’s “Aimless Arrow”

Converge: All We Love We Leave BehindConverge: All We Love We Leave Behind (Epitaph, 10/9/12)

Did you catch this last week? That’s right — it’s the first track and video from Converge’s All We Love We Leave Behind, a brand-new dose of hardcore pyrotechnics due out in a scant five weeks.

Syncing with the blazing tempo, director Max Moore’s cinematography offers ultra-low-attention-span cuts with a dark, blue-grey palette. Try to count the many quick tie-ins to vocalist Jacob Bannon’s cover art.

Converge

Converge offers all-star Entombed cover on new Napalm Death split

Holy smokes! ALARM’s fan-boy meter is registering off the charts, and for good reason: hardcore quartet Converge is covering Entombed’s classic “Wolverine Blues” on a new seven-inch split with pioneering grindcore outfit Napalm Death. And it gets better, because the cover includes guests in the form of Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates, Disfear), Aaron Turner (Split Cranium, Mamiffer, ex-Isis), and members of The Hope Conspiracy and Trap Them. Calling it “epic” seems like an understatement.

Weekly Music News Roundup

More details emerge about the upcoming Supermachiner release; the Shrinebuilder super-group begins recording; Mono announces a new album; Orange Tulip Conspiracy announces a full US tour for May. Get these and 10 other news bit after the jump.

Weekly Music News Roundup

Amon Tobin makes up half of a new project called Two Fingers; Witch goes on tour with Earthless; Dan Deacon posts a preview of his new album; Converge and Supermachiner each has a new album for ’09; Kronos Quartet is giving away 50 pairs of tickets for its performance in France this month.

Read about these and 11 more news bits in our weekly roundup.