To the uninitiated, Massachusetts quartet Converge can be downright terrifying. And it’s not because they appear clad in face paint or leather and chains — this underground punk-bred foursome would never waste time on costume-like trappings. They are so scary because they are so physically unassuming, so loud and so clearly do not give a fuck. Neither does their crowd. Converge’s hell-raising squall of noise inspires stage-diving by grown-ass men, the mid-show resetting of fans’ broken noses, and occasionally a little thing called “headwalking,” which is pretty much what it sounds like. Peel back the layers of scariness and you get closer to the core of why this band’s fans are so passionate: Converge is on some next-level planet. They may have been a hardcore band at one point, and the hardcore ethos still informs the methods to their madness, but neither is it really straight-up metal. Simply put, Converge has become a band by misfits, for misfits.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2009.