Axe to Fall is the seventh studio album by American metalcore band Converge, released on October 19, 2009, by Epitaph Records.

It is the band's most collaborative album, featuring a number of guest musicians, including members of Cave In and Genghis Tron and Steve Von Till of Neurosis, who performs lead vocals on the slow, Tom Waits-esque track "Cruel Bloom".

"For a very long time, we've wanted to do a collaboration album where we could include people we're close with or friends with and who we gel with musically and socially.

[Axe to Fall] doesn't feel like a big rock record where the guest vocalists come out and a spotlight is being thrown on them.

[12] Following a short tour in March 2009 with Ceremony, Coliseum, Pulling Teeth, Rise and Fall, Converge entered the studio to begin recording in May 2009.

Ballou stated that with each new Converge album, he "always [wants] to create a new listening-experience", and continued with the concept of "pushing [themselves] forward and not repeating [themselves]".

Bannon has stated that he felt that the main artistic difference between Axe to Fall and previous albums was the large number of guest musicians, which included various members from Cave In, Neurosis, and Genghis Tron, among others.

[18] Converge had previously thought of the idea of creating a collaborative album with many guest artists for some years, but felt that the "time to execute it [had] never been there".

[18] Bannon stated that working with a number of different artists was difficult and something that the band was not used to, but the finished product was "an extremely focused album".

While producing their album Board Up the House, Ballou gave Genghis Tron a rough mix of "Wretched World" to contribute their talents.

[21] Ballou considers the band's previous three albums (Jane Doe, You Fail Me and No Heroes) to be a trilogy in regards to their sound, and hoped to push their musical boundaries on Axe to Fall.

[23] Feeling that 40 to 50 minutes of metallic hardcore would be difficult for some, Converge used softer tracks, or "slow jams", such as "Damages" and "Wretched World", to take the listener "to some other places".

[25] The opening track "Dark Horse" was written about the passing of a close friend of Bannon, and how he died while trying to succeed as the "underdog".

[29] In August 2009, two months prior to the release of the album, Converge made the opening track "Dark Horse" available for streaming and as a free download.

[35] The short video (1:40 in duration) shows a man and a woman strapped to a machine, a television that gives birth to a bio-mechanical creature and several disturbing clips in between.

The video features stop motion animation influenced by horror films, and was referred to as "terrifying",[35] "seizure-inducing",[36] "nightmarish",[37] "excruciating",[38] and "gross".

The watermark was linked to the advance copy given to Shaun Hand, a staff member of the music news and reviews website MetalSucks.net.

Converge's method of dealing with their album leaking, referred to as "street justice" by Every Time I Die and Jamey Jasta, avoided a costly lawsuit but still inflicted damages upon MetalSucks by means of viral negative publicity.

[48] The band's first headlining tour in support of the album started in April 2010, with Coalesce, Harvey Milk, Gaza, Lewd Acts and Black Breath.

[53] Andrew Parks of Decibel commented on the album's wide range of sounds, stating "it strikes the perfect balance between dry-heaved hardcore – blunt-trauma-tracks that bleed into one another and hover around the 1:40 mark – and post-metal-opusses that embrace Converge's experimental impulses".

Jared W. Dillon of Sputnikmusic, who had previously given No Heroes a 4.5 out of 5,[62] gave the album a score of 2.5 out of 5, citing his distaste for the large number of guest musicians.

[55] Axe to Fall debuted at number 74 on the Billboard 200, with 7,400 copies sold in its first week,[63] becoming Converge's highest-charting album in the United States[64] until it was surpassed by 2012's All We Love We Leave Behind.