Converge detail collaborative album with Chelsea Wolfe, Ben Chisholm and Stephen Brodsky

Massachusetts hardcore outfit Converge have announced their tenth studio album, ‘Bloodmoon: I’, a collaborative effort with goth-rocker Chelsea Wolfe, multi-instrumentalist Ben Chisholm and Cave In frontman Stephen Brodsky.

Alongside the announcement came the album’s lead single, ‘Blood Moon’, a gloomy eight-minute epic that ebbs and flows between visceral, thrashy metalcore stylings and bleak, eerie atmospherics. On the chorus, Converge frontman Jacob Bannon screams: “Blood moon ascends in the night / Cosmic unblinking eye / Gazing through flesh and bone / Into the glow of our souls.”

Take a look at the film clip for ‘Blood Moon’, directed by Emily Birds, below:

“We wanted to do something grander than the typical four-piece Converge music,” Bannon said in a press release. “Our dynamics are pushing and pulling in all different directions on this record, and I find that to be creatively rewarding.”

The supergroup initially formed at the Netherlands’ Roadburn festival in 2016, where they performed a set of reworked Converge songs under the moniker Blood Moon. As per today’s (September 29) press release, “The energy and rapturously received appearance inspired the group to want to make music together, though it would take several years before their schedules allowed.”

The band began working on ‘Bloodmoon: I’ in late 2019. Early demos were spearheaded by Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou, producing the sessions from his own studio, God City, in the band’s batting grounds of Salem. As a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, however, the album was finished remotely.

Brodsky – who originally played with Converge between 1997 and 1998 – noted that the album came together fluidly, with each member adding their own unique perspective to the project. He said: “I feel like everyone just kept the music in mind and wanted to do what’s best for the song.”

Wolfe echoed his comment, pointing out that the project allowed her to explore new territory with her vocal style: “The project stretched my vocals in new ways. It’s so different than what I normally sing over that I was able to open up and be vulnerable with my vocals.”

‘Bloodmoon: I’ is due for release on November 19 via Epitaph, with a vinyl pressing set to arrive on June 24, 2022 via Deathwish.

The full tracklisting for ‘Bloodmoon: I’ is:

1. ‘Blood Moon’
2. ‘Viscera Of Men’
3. ‘Coil’
4. ‘Flower Moon’
5. ‘Tongues Playing Dead’
6. ‘Lord Of Liars’
7. ‘Failure Forever’
8. ‘Scorpion’s Sting’
9. ‘Daimon’
10. ‘Crimson Stone’
11. ‘Blood Dawn’