Jane Doe

Matthew Ellard produced it with guitarist Kurt Ballou, and the sleeve is by the singer Jacob Bannon. It is the first Converge record with Nate Newton on bass and Ben Koller on drums, and the last with guitarist Aaron Dalbec; the line-up has not changed since. The budget was $11,000, which changed how they worked. The album was cut onto six reels of two-inch tape across three studios and mixed in two. Most of it was done at Q Division Studios, next door to a James Taylor session. Newton remembered it: "He kept sending his engineer over to tell us to be quiet. 'Mr. Taylor is trying to record vocal tracks, and you guys are goofing off and being way too loud over here.'" The slower songs were recorded in the larger Studio A for its ambience and the faster ones in the smaller Studio B. Newton has said, "I remember all of us wanting to write a hardcore record the kids were going to hate." Ellard saw it as a big rock record rather than a metal one, and Ballou calls it the first Converge album he is proud of from start to finish. It did not chart, but it was the band's commercial breakthrough, and the reviews were immediately strong. The running order here is the original's as printed.