“You Fail Me” is the title track from Converge‘s fifth album and their (relative) commercial breakthrough, released over 20 years ago. Converge aren’t a band we’ve spent a lot of time on here at Cover Me as they’re metalcore, an abrasive hybrid between contemporary metal and hardcore punk. Though extremely prolific for the first decade-plus of their existence, few bands have taken on their songs because, well, they’re metalcore.
Blood Vulture are an alternative metal/doom metal project which debuted last year. We’re getting into metal arcana now, but the short version is that doom metal is a more traditional form of metal than metalcore – doom metal dates from the ’80s, metalcore from the mid to late ’90s – and “alternative metal” just means metal bands that take things from non-metal genres and add them to their sound. And no, it wouldn’t be normal for a doom metal band from the ’80s to cover a metalcore band. But, of course, Blood Vulture are a new project.
Though some metalcore songs have “clean” vocals – i.e. vocals that are decipherable because they are sung not screamed/shouted – “You Fail Me” is not one of those metalcore songs. Lead singer Jacob Bannon screams through the entire song.
So the most radical thing Blood Vulture’s Jordan Olds does is he sings the song. And the result is nothing like doom metal, as his vocals are clean and almost a little power metal-esque (not quite though). The band still plays the song relatively straight until the concluding section, where they lean into the doom/sludge side of their sound for the dramatic conclusion.
If you were ever thinking about getting into metalcore but were put off by how abrasive it can be, well this cover might be a good gateway. By singing the vocals instead of screaming them, Olds reveals the (relatively) catchy metal song hiding in plain sight.
