Album Review: Converge - Hum of Hurt
Reviewed by Oli Gonzalez
“Hey Oli, would you be able to review the new Converge album?”
I could do, I thought to myself, with an air of confusion as it had only been a few months since I had submitted my review for “Love Is Not Enough”. See, some bands keep you waiting for years for a new album (Tool, we’re looking at you!). Some keep a more steady and faster release cadence. Then there’s Converge releasing two full lengths within four months! Given the reaction to February 2026’s “Love Is Not Enough”, I don’t think anybody is going to complain with more music from the metalcore bruisers! So I had no real hesitation in adding a second Converge album to my writing list within the same half of the year!
Emotion.
The whole album is predicated on emotion. More specifically, rage. Take exhibit A, opening track ‘Slip The Noose’ to illustrate this. Here, the voice of Jacob Bannon is the living embodiment of rage, with each utterance dripping with primitive angst! Well, it’s hardly going to be a love song with a title like ‘Slip The Noose’ now is it? The music yet feels somewhat refined and more elaborate than you’d have first expected. An intriguing juxtaposition, offering a deceptively complex Dillinger Escape Plan style vibe. Before you have time to ponder and analyse this, you’re already thrown into the next round of this gauntlet, with ‘Doom in Bloom’ offering a slower sludgier attack but one that pulls no punches with its emotional output! The band spoke of their approach to recording in “Love Is Not Enough”. An approach that incorporated many single take recordings, effectively creating a live studio environment. If it comes out slightly sloppy and a note is one 8th of a second out of time, then so be it. The end product is one that the musicians enjoyed so much more as well as feeling like a more honest believable one. It’s likely they took a similar approach to “Hum Of Hurt”.
The songs come quick and fast, hovering around the two minute mark as is the case for ‘It Only Gets Worse’. Maybe they’re coming too quick and fast because there’s a lack of salient moments or hooks. Hooks like the infectious and instantly memorable chorus for ‘We Were Never The Same’ from the previous record.
Though, things change during ‘Dream Debris’. At six minutes, this is almost like Dream Theatre length song by Converge’s standards. Emotion and rage are still the key cogs in the machine. Though it seems to come out in more managed and controlled outlets. Whether it’s through the mysterious and ominous guitar arpeggios, the hypnotic instantly memorable drums and bass, the impression is one of a slow yet no less cathartic output. Jacob gives one of his strongest vocal performances on what is a complex and challenging song! Definitely one of the highlights of the album.
All great albums need space for the songs to breathe. A two and a half minute instrumental in the shape of ‘It Used To Matter’ provides just that! The pace slows to a glacial drip, the mood is austere and melancholic, your senses have time to recoup and regenerate. We needed that rest before getting thrown into the maelstrom that is ‘Hum Of Hurt’. This is another with an infectious groove – a neck snapping groove at that - with the guitars providing the melodic focal point, invoking a vibe like that of the early 00s metalcore movement. Whereas ‘Nothing Is Over’ invokes the most sadistic and venomous sludge-infused attack of the album yet…and that’s saying something! This isn’t just rage, this is all-out unfiltered fury! The kind that would make you want to tear up your living room furniture. Oof, this is gonna to cause some carnage in the live arena.
Then, it’s over. Just like that! As quickly as it started.
Converge left the world desperate for more after the release of “Love Is Not Enough”. “Hum Of Hurt” helps to quench that thirst, but we still need more Converge! Maybe a third album in the autumn of 2026?
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