Review by SilentScream213 for Converge - Jane Doe (2001)

Unforgivable vocals ruin this. Look, I love extreme vocals. I love death growls, I like Black Metal shrieks, I love Thrash yells, all that good jaunt. And even classically “bad” vocals don’t bother me much. I’ve got a pretty high tolerance for that stuff as someone who listens to more than a handful of Metal bands where one of the musicians basically bit the bullet and did the vocals despite not being able to sing at all. I mean hell, I even enjoy J-Pop/Denpa/Idol music where the singers can’t actually sing at all and rely on autotune and their cute aesthetic to get by. Really, it usually doesn’t bother me.

The abrasiveness of these vocals goes beyond offensively bad, into essentially unlistenable, to the point the music around it suffers immensely. There’s some sort of distortion/static effect on most of them which makes them even worse. The crazy thing? The vocalist employs more than one technique, and they suck at ALL of them. The shrill screams are terrible, the punky yelling is terrible, the sassy vocals are terrible, the “singing” if you can call it that is poor, the only thing passable the vocalist does is the monotonous droning style used on “Phoenix in Flight.” Which still isn’t good, but it’s inoffensive.

I originally wanted to read the lyrics along while listening to see what it was about. Gave up halfway into the first song as the vocalist does not even make the most basic attempt to enunciate a single word. Right from the first line, you are immediately lost, as the noises the vocalist screams don’t sound like even one word in the verse. I will never know whether they are good or not because the vocalist put zero effort into delivering them.

Oh, the music? Maybe I’d have more to say about it if I wasn’t distracted by how awful the vocals are the whole time. It’s competently played and written, even above average for the genres employed most of the time. There are some genuinely great moments scattered about, usually when the band leans more into crafting riffs and chord progressions as opposed to being as mathy and chaotic as possible. “Heaven in Her Arms” has some awesome riffs and chords that walk the fine line between melodic and dissonant, aforementioned “Phoenix in Flight” has nice doomy atmosphere, and the Post-Metal style buildup of the closer is pretty great. The drumming is consistently excellent, and probably the one aspect of it I have nothing but praise for. Not only technically impressive and complex, but also packed with variety, and simpler sections that serve the music rather than being too preoccupied with chaos and showing off.

I’m not going to lie though – even with the perfect vocalist, this album would only be “good” to me. Most of it is too chaotic and angular for my taste. A shame though, I think I would have enjoyed the lyrics and concept. At the end of the day it’s just not for me.