“We know we’re an acquired taste. We’re too weird for hardcore kids. We’re too punk for metal kids. And we’re just too fucking ugly for everybody else.” – Jacob Bannon, vocalist for Converge

The break-up album is a music standard, and each genre has its own take. The hardcore band Converge gave us the definitive statement for extreme punk and metal, Jane Doe. Most break-up songs are sad or defiant or bitter, but Converge channels their usual intensity into pure fury.

The album art has become iconic, both for the band and the metal and hardcore scenes. It’s an original piece by Bannon, the subject’s looks not based on any one woman, but instead representing the woman at the center of the album – the Jane Doe. She’s silhouetted and breaking apart as their relationship fades into his personal history, with closed lids looking down on the viewer, above and distant from us.

The roughest part of listening to metal is the vocals — modern extreme metal favors intensity over rhythm or melody. Jacob Bannon’s singing is so harsh and abstract, it qualifies as an instrument on its own. Lyrics are almost entirely unintelligible, but his howl conveys exactly the anguish written into the songs. Further, the printed lyrics are more like suggestions. Bannon appears to riff and improvise on the words, sometimes taking one or two lines and repeating them across the whole song. The lyrics aren’t important – only the intensity.

The album opener “Concubine” wastes no time – brief guitar intro, brief drumming, main music and vocals, a few changes in tempo, a breakdown lasting only six seconds, then the end, all within 80 seconds. It’s a litmus test and statement of purpose. If you aren’t with the band after this song, the rest of the album is unlikely to convince you.

After two more blistering songs, “Hell to Pay” gives the listener their first breathing room on the album. A thick, menacing riff and bassline anchor this song. Converge were given two rooms to record this album, and to increase the contrast, the slower tracks were played in the larger room to give more space and echo to the sound  and faster tracks were played in the smaller room for a more claustrophobic feeling.

The next four songs – “Homewrecker,” “The Broken Vow,” “Bitter and Then Some,” and “Heaven in Her Arms” – are relentless, and their titles convey the hurt at the center of the album. “Phoenix in Flight” is awash in fuzz and distortion, sounding like an evil My Bloody Valentine, before blasting into “Phoenix in Flames,” the most violent song on the album — 43 seconds of drumming and vocals, but for all its chaos, the drumming is precise and tight.

The title track closes the album, and at eleven minutes, it’s by far the longest. It’s a slow, hypnotic song whose main riff rises and falls and lurches forward. The chorus interrupts, with Bannon audibly singing “I want out”, only for the guitars to crash back in, as though he experienced a brief moment of clarity before submerged again in his misery. Seven minutes in, the guitar begins the coda, with milder singing and instrumentation than anything previously on the album. The last vocals we hear are shrieks before the drums and guitars play higher and higher notes while slowly fading out to silence.

Jane Doe is exhausting. For being the band’s defining moment, it’s also their least accessible. It’s difficult to explain why we enjoy music this discordant and alienating, yet all this is meant as a compliment. Some bands push their music in new directions to frustrate their listeners. They stretch and tear their genre and see who will follow them there, and Converge continues to play with their sound, never one to settle down for too long. For their efforts, Jane Doe became one of the most lauded metal/hardcore albums of the decade.