Actually, it's just because it was ambient keyboard noise and images of nature... the "band" hadn't begun to "play" and/or "sing" yet.
I'm actually embarrassed that they are from Texas. My guess is that they weren't born here.
Please for the love of GOD, someone enlighten me...
- Thread starter Metal_Camden
- Start date
Actually, it's just because it was ambient keyboard noise and images of nature... the "band" hadn't begun to "play" and/or "sing" yet.
I'm actually embarrassed that they are from Texas. My guess is that they weren't born here.
Element_man
Lord of the Realm
I am a fan of Converge. The music is jagged, abrasive and visceral, but it's some of the most legitimately ferocious-sounding music I've ever heard. The thing that sets them apart from the OP's band is that Converge have actual riffs and musical ideas in their music. The songs themselves don't have much structure but they'll come to a theme, and stick with it for a few phrases and build on it before moving onto the next one. I also like the bleak lyrics and atmosphere. It's the same reasons that I enjoy Circle Takes the Square, Funeral Diner and other stuff like that. I can definitely see why many people would be turned off.
To me, Design the Skyline sounds like 3 bands playing completely different stuff, slapped into one. It just sounds so devoid of passion and any real ideas, just a bunch of random shit. Lots of motion but nothing to motivate it.
Claus / Intromental
20 years of uniting the powers of metal
Matt, just to play the Devil's Advocate here; if there's a band you say that you hate, would you own any of their albums? I know that I for sure wouldn't...
dcowboys311
Member
anyone on this board with a valid opinion on CONVERGE is laughable at best, sorry MM. they are possibly one of the best and most influential hardcore bands of the 90's both musically and visually. If you have never been up front singing along at a Converge show then you have never "seen" them. hardcore is about full on participation unlike attending a PP event. sure we all head bang, but there is something a little more special when people are whizzing by your head and the dudes in the band are sweating all over you. I bet even Glenn can say it was pretty awesome to stage dive at his own festival.
Converge's Jane Doe was a hall of fame inductee
http://www.decibelmagazine.com/hall-of-fame/converge/
also i am pretty sure they had THREE albums in Decibel's 100 albums of the 2000s.
you guys may not "get" why they are as big as they are, but the hardcore scene does.
I wouldn't even limit it to just the 90's...their 00's output is much more well known and arguably more influential. Throw in Deathwish and yeah, there's a reason anyone with even the slightest bit of interest in hardcore knows the name Converge.
DuchessOfDork
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That was my experience, too. I'd never heard of Converge, so when I saw them perform, my husband and I couldn't understand what he was saying. Does he just say "fuck" over and over? He sounded like a chicken, so we called them "the chicken guys" because it sounded like he said "bock-bock b'gawww" over and over.
So I did a little research on them, and discovered that all over their music sounds like this. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but that's just their style. It's not something I like, but I'm not gonna diss people who do like it.
But I recall being told I "fail at music" for not liking Converge. That was surreal.
General Zod
Ruler of Australia
Such a belief must first be predicated on the idea that anything the record companies do is part of coherent, well-designed business plan. I'm not sure there's any reason to believe that's so (obviously, this isn't true of all labels). After all, the list of industries in greater disarray is a very small one. I think the short answer is, they signed them because they thought it would be a profitable decision. Time will tell.
Corsair
Member
- Aug 17, 2009
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*cough*
Basically this.
Short story:
WHen the whole Scion rock fest thing was announced, I started checking out a lot of the bands that were on the bill, among them was Converge. Seeing as a lot of folks were saying how incomparably awesome they were, and I ahd a few friends that were into them, I asked a buddy of mine to allow me to borrow a disc or two. He let me borrow Jane doe, and I won't lie, I got about 5 tracks in before I started skipping through the rest of it.
It didn't catch my ear. I don't know if the rest of the band's output is similar or better/worse than what's on there, but it was enough to turn me off to the band.
If that makes me wrong or something, then so be it. I don't doubt their intensity or sincerity (and I still think that comparing them with the likes of the band this thread is ultimately about is pointless) I just don't think i'm going to like them, or the style of music they play. It doesn't jive with me, and I have nothing in common with it mentally or emotionally. I can't connect with it. -core music in general, with few exceptions. It's not a categorical prejudice or anything...so I acknowledge the possibility that I just don't "get" it - not that anyone's ever bothered to explain it, or the appeal. But...at the same time, is it something that can really -be- explained?
Ended up giving Scion tickets to him, because after all was said and done, there were only a few bands on the bill that I was ultimately interested in, and decided that dealing with that crowd wasn't worth it.
It brings to mind, the whole "scene" business in more extreme types of music. It's something I never really understood. The black metal* "scene" or the hardcore "Scene" or whatever. I could never make heads or tails of social phenomenon like that. I mean I'm not a loner or anything, by gods, -far- from it, so maybe there's just never been one that I can identify enough with to really get into?
But, at the same time, Identifying with a particular 'scene' and liking music that exists within it aren't mutually inclusive traits. Plenty of black metal that I'm into despite the fact that I find the social forces behind it are almost totally asinine. I tend to like the subject matter and atmospheres (Spiritual darkness, which has been fascinating to me ever since I was like nine.)
J. Golden
Heaven and Hell Records
AeonicSlumber
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Yeah that was me and as I said, I was kidding. So way to take a joke seriously. I said the same thing to AngraRules for not liking Napalm Death. I honestly don't care what you think about them, besides the fact I will maybe joke about you sounding like one of the aformentioned old people Skyrefuge was talking about.
Metalmilitia2000 thinks they suck and I don't care. I think Nevermore's latest album is an atrocity, Annihilator's output after Set The World On Fire blows, and that later nu-Kreator is garbage. It's all a matter of opinion, and it's just music at the end of the day and he is still a rad dude worth buying a beer for.
That being said, I do think comparing them to DTS IS a fail regardless. Regardless of opinion, that's just straight up ignorance -- like me saying I don't get the difference between Edguy and Nickelback. It means you didn't even take the time to even Wiki the two bands and look up their scenes, and take 2 seconds to think about how completely different they are and how different their audiences are and you just end up sounding like a metal elitist.
DuchessOfDork
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I was comparing the two because they both are of the -core variety. I even said why Converge was different. Believe me, when I saw how loving people were of Converge, I did some research to try and discover why.
AeonicSlumber
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DuchessOfDork
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Metalmilitia2000
UM's Resident Asshole
AeonicSlumber
srs
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Good, because just because it's hardcore doesn't mean it sounds like it. I am sure even someone who isn't super into hxc can tell that this:
sounds nothing like
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ8O1AiDvIc&feature=related[/ame]
and those two sound nothing like
and so on.
Last edited by a moderator:
General Zod
Ruler of Australia
Agreed... the only real difference is, Korn is far more original.
People are way to protective about what is and isn't allowed into the Metal genre. It's really quite odd. I've heard a number of people say, Lamb of God isn't really Metal. Which to me, is just stupefying. It strikes me as a judgement based solely on the length of Randy's hair, not the music. But whatever... in the end, all these genre tags hold no real purpose, beyond serving as descriptors for reviewers.
AeonicSlumber
srs
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To be fair, Lamb Of God when they were Burn The Priest was well known in the hardcore scene and the first album as LoG was also really popular with hardcore kids. Those guys don't really come from the metal scene, same with Darkest Hour and Shadows Fall. This is probably why people think that way.
General Zod
Ruler of Australia
I think you may be giving the average Metal fan a bit too much credit. I'd be surprised to learn that the average person who views LoG as non-Metal, does so because of their Burn the Priest material. But who knows...
AeonicSlumber
srs
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well it's not so much the MATERIAL itself as it is the people that supported them. For almost the first half of their time as a band, they were hot only with hardcore kids. Kids who were listening to Hatebreed, Sick Of It All, etc. This is partly why LoG borrowed Sick Of It All's "wall of death" and made it famous. As The Palaces Burn is in my opinion, a great album that combines hxc sensibilities with metal riff precision, but metal purists couldn't get down with it. By no stretch would I call LoG a true metal band, even now when they have since abandoned almost all of their hxc image, and ethos for a more Pantera-ish sound and image. With the true metallers, that whole scene that spawned in 2002 was like oil to their water.
Orion Crystal Ice
Rider of the Astral Fire
Labeling, though it can be irritating, is important for a few reasons, one being that if we spend so much time and energy using a word, it obviously has to mean something, and two, the majority of metal fans tend to want it to come with a particular set of standards, however expansive, sonically or otherwise. Stuff that strongly hails from a lot of 'urban' background like a hardcore or hip hop scene, which typically (not always) tends to focus on 'wiggerish' foolishness or evolve into it, is not really something that gels with the general approach of metal, which has always been, no matter the subgenre, an intelligent discourse/expression of discontent in the *big picture*. Again it's not every band or not every this or that trait of said genre, for example I don't think Converge is amazingly horrible like some do, I am a fan of Zao, and heck, I even listened to some Downset back in the day. But the fact is after a certain line is crossed musically/thematically, or things taken away from the actual metal core too heavily, that's the reaction you get from people. I don't think it needs to be too too criticized..It's just how it is. A lot of other fans in other scenes would be even more wildly ignorant, i.e. if you threw in a shredding lead or this/that type of vocal in a lot of other forms of rock or pop music, you'd instantly get legions of people decrying this amazingly bad '80s thing' for that reason in itself and no other. So this is no big deal......I don't think.
Orion Crystal Ice
Rider of the Astral Fire
Here's another breakdown (I had a post at the end of page 4, which will make this post make more sense), let's take two metal songs that contain the following elements in spades:
- Well-written lyrics without the timefulness of random profanity or ranting
- Competant instrumentation which is guitar-and-vocal based
- Songwriting which takes chances but still ends up logical
Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Running Wild - Riding the Storm
You could take those elements from these songs, convert them into a death metal tune, more power metal, doom metal, whatever it is, and if those elements are intact, it fits into that same family while staying diverse. Now, and this isn't an argument, but just a question - what portion of the Korn discography possesses these things in abundance? Even if the lyrics and themes were abysmal, there would still need to be some more than competent instrumentation and songwriting shown. I get that they are heavy, sometimes there are riffs, it can sort of sound like metal, but for the most part that band does not succeed at the above which is what most metal fans want and define in their music. Just as easily, and reaching into the own genre, what portion of, say, Annotations of an Autopsy's stuff, or various bedroom black metal bands, possesses one or the other or both in spades? I'm just making examples here..................and even if the fan likes this band AND that band, etc... they probably still won't be pressed to call a band metal just because they are a fan..so it isn't ALWAYS an insult...just trying to find where the boundaries lie.
- Well-written lyrics without the timefulness of random profanity or ranting
- Competant instrumentation which is guitar-and-vocal based
- Songwriting which takes chances but still ends up logical
Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Running Wild - Riding the Storm
You could take those elements from these songs, convert them into a death metal tune, more power metal, doom metal, whatever it is, and if those elements are intact, it fits into that same family while staying diverse. Now, and this isn't an argument, but just a question - what portion of the Korn discography possesses these things in abundance? Even if the lyrics and themes were abysmal, there would still need to be some more than competent instrumentation and songwriting shown. I get that they are heavy, sometimes there are riffs, it can sort of sound like metal, but for the most part that band does not succeed at the above which is what most metal fans want and define in their music. Just as easily, and reaching into the own genre, what portion of, say, Annotations of an Autopsy's stuff, or various bedroom black metal bands, possesses one or the other or both in spades? I'm just making examples here..................and even if the fan likes this band AND that band, etc... they probably still won't be pressed to call a band metal just because they are a fan..so it isn't ALWAYS an insult...just trying to find where the boundaries lie.
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