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Converge's Jacob Bannon Shares Beautiful Nine-Minute Epic, "Goodbye Old Friend"

It's taken from Wear Your Wounds' debut, 'WYW,' out April 7.

A decade or so ago, I read an interview with Geoff Rickly in which he talked at length about Salem metalcore legends Converge. I don't remember the exact wording, but for some reason his idea stuck: Converge were brutal, frantic, extremely heavy. But all of that was so overwhelming, he just got lost in the mix. Eventually, he said, Converge had turned into a beautiful, consuming white noise. Their music, he insisted, was sort of relaxing.

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Converge frontman Jacob Bannon has been releasing solo tracks for the better part of two decades, commiting to the Wear Your Wounds moniker around 2008. As the timeline has stretched out, Bannon's work has grown towards that uncannily consuming bliss from a different angle. The white noise is present in the mix, and Bannon's vocals are hushed. Post-rock and ambient noise wasted into each other. "Adrift In You," from Bannon's 2012 split with Revelator, is the perfect example, from the track's title through to its muffled explosions and washed vocals.

On April 7, Bannon will release his full debut as Wear Your Wounds, WYW, on his own Deathwish Inc. label. It'll feature contributions from Converge bandmate Kurt Ballou, The Red Chord's Mike McKenzie, Sleigh Bells' Chris Maggio, and Sean Martin of Hatebreed. In advance of that, Bannon has shared the album's first song, "Goodbye Old Friend," a glacial nine-minute composition at a music box pace, led by simple reverberating guitars and Bannon's mournful vocals. You can listen to that below.

Photo by dvwphotography via Jacob Bannon on Instagram.

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