What a year to be a Converge fan. They drop Love Is Not Enough in February, their first solo album for nine long years and which (in my humble opinion) is a real career highlight. It’s a proper no-frills, no-messing-about Converge album but if you want more in-depth thoughts on that one, you can check out Rick’s review here.
They were announced for Outbreak Festival, playing the stacked Saturday alongside the likes of Touché Amoré, PUP, Tummyache, and Alexisonfire. I would bet good money that day will be one of the highlights of festival season this year. Then to round it all off, on April Fool’s Day of all days, they announce their second album of 2026, Hum of Hurt. If you’re a Converge fan thinking things could not get any better, just wait until you actually hear the record.
Naturally when a band puts out two records in quick succession there are going to be comparisons. Thoughts of it being a “sequel” of sorts, one that’s maybe made up of weaker material left over from the first album. With Hum of Hurt, Converge have managed to produce a record that is entirely distinct from its predecessor and one which is its own beast. In fact, you’ll probably feel like this is the first Converge album you’ve heard this year because it is so different. Where Love Is Not Enough shows more of the band’s straight-up metal leanings with shades of Neurosis and Botch, Hum of Hurt is reminiscent of earlier Converge with a proper hardcore sound.
The album is frontloaded with tracks filled with raw emotion, from the music to the heart-on-its-sleeve lyrics. It all comes at you hard and it comes at you fast, a burst of drums and rage to kick off proceedings on “Slip The Noose” and you’re away. In press for the album, frontman Jacob Bannon spoke of how Hum of Hurt leans more into being an emotional hardcore album and for me this sound is rooted in the first six tracks. The lyrics drip with pain like the open wounds of “Doom In Bloom”, the entire sentiment of “It Only Gets Worse”, and the thoughts of giving up on “Detonator”.
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The music throughout catches Converge at their finest; while Bannon is conducting a lyrical exorcism, the rest of the band are maintaining the chaotic beauty, leaving room to breathe or driving the songs forward as needed. “I Won’t Let You” is something quite catchy, almost an earworm in amongst the weight of everything around it and is a real highlight of the whole album. “It’s Not Up To Us” goes full tilt, hitting everything that makes for a perfect Converge song; jagged, chaotic, agonising, and beautiful all at once.
Bannon also made reference to the band’s early idea for the album being noise rock before the writing process led them to what became Hum of Hurt. While it might not be explicitly noise rock, the last four songs on the album feel like they’ve at least partly realised that ambition. “Dream Debris” could be a post-rock song at six minutes on a 30-minute album. It builds and builds around the drums and the bass, slowly letting its ideas breathe as the song takes its time to introduce itself before building up through layers of tension and emotion.
“It Used To Matter”, a woozy bendy instrumental piece that serves as an introduction of sorts to the title track “Hum of Hurt”, also serves as a thread joining Hum of Hurt to Love Is Not Enough. “Beyond Repair” from Love Is Not Enough, which acted like an introduction to the song which followed “Amon Amok”, sounds hauntingly familiar to “It Used To Matter”. It’s a nice little call-back and connection between the two albums (even if they might not have meant it).
On this album’s title track, the lyrics explore the price paid for the life we pursue and the work to be done to get where we want to be as a person. One of the most emotional of the band’s career, it’s anchored with the recurring line of “I’m not the man I wanted to be”. The album comes to a close with “Nothing Is Over” where the band look to wring everything left from themselves and put it down into one last song, and by the time that song and the album come to a close I don’t think they would have anything left for a third album this year. Signing off as it started, with pure emotion and rage.
It would take most bands a whole career to put out two albums as good as Converge have in just under six months. If Love Is Not Enough was a career highlight, then with Hum of Hurt the band have made a record that honestly, I would say is up with their best. A band with nothing to prove, still doing it better than most and dropping amazing albums with what looks to be ease after over 30 years in the business. What a year to be a Converge fan.
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Hum of Hurt is out on June 5th
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