But collaboration at its best ends up sounding greater than what it might with only that one vision.” That’s sometimes why solo records are so great – it’s a pure vision. There’s always a risk with collaborations that an idea can become watered down as everyone gets their chance to have a say. It takes a certain discipline to be open to the idea of your song having a new life that’s not what you intended. “I think 20 years ago, 10 years ago, even last year, it was hard for me to hear my song completely different. He and I sent a lot of stuff back and forth that way. We weren’t going to use it, but then Steve took my guitar melody and almost wrote a new song around it, pulling it apart and creating something. The song Coil started as something I wrote. I would get bent out of shape if they didn’t turn out the way I wanted. “I think when a songwriter is new, they tend to have a very strong vision of what they want a song to be. “As a member of Converge I’ve gotten better over the years at letting go of control,” Ballou says. It’s a belief underlined time and again by the finished work, which crosses squalling noise and oppressive distortion with desolate passages of relative calm and Wolfe’s consistently haunting vocal refrains.

He doesn’t think that these songs could have been written in a vacuum by one band or songwriter. In fact, Brodsky, Wolfe and her co-conspirator Ben Chisholm have scattered the band’s volatile, suffocatingly chaotic building blocks across wide open expanses, permitting thrilling moments of catch-and-release when Ballou puts the hammer down or vocalist Jacob Bannon’s guttural shriek pierces the gloom.īallou, a noted producer whose uncompromising, savagely heavy work has left his fingerprints across the face of modern hardcore, views Bloodmoon: I as a genuine collaboration. Bloodmoon: I is unlike anything else in the Converge canon. READ MORE: “We’d always joked about how being in a band was like being in a marriage… at one point we went to couples therapy” Deap…Īs it turns out, yes, it would be cool if this group of people made a record together.“At some point we were all sitting around like, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if this group of people made a record together?’” “You end up just chatting,” Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou says matter-of-factly. Five years ago a whole lot of nothing was happening as metalcore pioneers Converge linked up with Cave In guitarist-vocalist Stephen Brodsky and goth-rock songwriter Chelsea Wolfe for dates under the Blood Moon banner, reinterpreting the band’s back catalogue in this new, multifaceted image. Touring can be pretty dull – a whole lot of nothing generally happens in the yawning gaps between shows.

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