“A revolution in noise”: Our original 2001 review of Converge’s Jane Doe

This is the original Kerrang! review of Jane Doe from 2001.

It is, it has to be said, a truly astonishing sound. Converge might have one foot planted in the U.S. hardcore scene, but Jane Doe is entirely unlike anything that genre has thrown up in the last 20 years.

One part hardcore, one part noise, one part raw emotion, Jane Doe is a whirling, screaming assault of a record that comes hurtling out of the darkness and plants a size-10 boot square on your forehead. But for all their extremity, songs like Concubine or Heaven In Her Arms are not one-dimensional caricatures. Yes, there’s bile and spite here, but there’s a range of less obvious feelings woven through its lacerated grooves and jagged, jerking time changes: desperation, longing, insanity.

Like East Coast contemporaries Cave In and Isis – different in sound, identical in intent – Converge are redefining what can be done within the confines of hardcore. And as such, Jane Doe is a revolution in noise.

Verdict: 5/5

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