a 55" The Dillinger Escape Plan, they have been one of the domi- Machine The Dillinger nating forces of hardcore during the past five years. In 1999, 3 Dillinger released one of the most intense, hard-hitting, com- plex, and mind-bogglingly chaotic albums to grace your friendly neighbourhood underground record store. Five years, three line-up changes, and one EP later, we er, OP Contributor have Miss Machine. This album is defi- ardcore and heavy music beware. Dillinger is nitely not what I expected, eady to decapitate your heads and feast upon however, it is what I hoped for. ooling brains. For those of you unfamiliar with Although Miss Machine has enough abrasion to convert a cement truck to dust, it also contains hooks and digestible melodies. And there are even cellos in one song. What’s that you say? Cellos? Yeah, frickin’ cel- los, man. The album opens up with the scorching song, “Van Damsel,” and it feels like a punch in the face...in a good way. For the first 30 seconds or so, I thought I was listening to Calculating Infinity pt.2, but then, what’s that? Dynamic pro- duction? Is that a shiny, orgasmic convergence of all the instruments that I hear? Yes, yes, it is. There are a lot of slow-then-fast, soft-then-hard parts on this album, which creates a Brady Ehler, OP Contributor Converge is back with their fourth “true” studio album, entitled Yow Fai/ Me. This album is a collection of horrifying, relentless, and utterly furious songs about the weaknesses and failures of human beings. This is Converge’s first album on the legendary punk- rock label Epitaph, and the first full-length to be released after their split from Equal Vision. You Fail Me picks up where 2001s Jane Doe left off, dealing with the residual affects of a relationship gone bad. The lyrical content, however, is more universally focused and wider in scope. As with Converge’s previ- ous releases, the lyrics are deeply poetic, painfully honest, and at times even profound. If you listen very closely on two or three of this album’s tracks, you may be able to discern what vocalist Jacob Bannon is screaming about. For the rest of the album, however, I would suggest following along with the lyric sheet. In a musical sense, the band has expanded into new sonic territory with this album. Not to say that You Fai/ Me doesn’t sound like a Converge album. It does, and as such it is extremely heavy, loud, and fast. However, the walls of power chords and straight-ahead hardcore punk foundations have been shaken up even more here than in Jane Doe. Converge continues to expand their sound with less conventional riffs and song structures, and there are even a couple mellow moments on this album. For example, the album intro, “First Light,” the mid-album acoustic, and to a lesser degree, the final terror-inspir- ing opus, “Hanging Moon” all feel much calmer than the rest of the album, If you have never heard of Converge before, beware: this is not your grand-pappy’s music, and you will never see a Convetge video on the Much Music Countdown. If you like bands like Hatebreed and Heubver 18/2000 a aR ANSE very nice contrast and pushes the effectiveness of the chaot- ic, face-smashing elements of the album to higher levels. The album slows down a bit on track five, which has the cello in it. At this point everything is pretty chill until track nine, “Baby’s First Coffin,’ which hits like a ton of garbage cans on your face. Track ten, “Unretrofied,” is shockingly mellow, and (gasp) soberly arranged. The album ends sounding pretty much like their earlier stuff. If you’ve never heard The Dillinger Escape Plan before, this album may be worth buying just for the brain-shorting guitar antics—Ben Wienman, and Brian Benoit make James Hetfield and Kirk Hammet sound like a couple of five-year- olds with ukuleles. Also, they have the best drummer in the universe—period. Terror than you might really enjoy, or even love, this disc. If your appreciation for heavy music starts with Papa Roach and ends with Korn then don’t waste your time with this one. If you do like Converge, check out Bannon’s Death, Wish - Records ° at . Also, let it be known that the beast is on tour and they are dropping by Seattle on October 16. DGnEPPPess |W