Boston metallic hardcore heroes Converge have been a band for more than 30 years, and they have never taken less than two years between albums. Somehow, though, we're about to get two Converge records in a six-month period. We did nothing to deserve such blessings, but that's what's happening.
A rhetorical question: Do you consider 2021's Bloodmoon: I, a full-length experimental collaboration with Chelsea Wolfe and Cave-In's Stephen Brodsky, to be a proper Converge album? The general consensus is that no, that's something else. I think it's really good, but it's not the full Converge experience. So that means that Love Is Not Enough, the absolutely sick record that the band just released in February, was their first in about nine years. Today, Converge announce plans to follow that album immediately with a completely new studio LP called Hum Of Hurt.
Frontman Jakob Bannon says that Converge realized that they had "a wealth of material" when they got together to work on a new record, and they learned that they had two full albums' worth of music. Here's how Bannon describes the distinction between the two LPs:
It’s not a sequel. The unifying musical idea early on was, "Let’s make a noise rock album." But we never really did. The first one wasn’t. This one touches on that spirit, but it’s much more dynamic than that descriptor. To me, it leans more into being an emotional hardcore album, while Love Is Not Enough feels more metal leaning album. In the end, we simply gave creative birth to another Converge record with its own unique identity and character.
As with Love Is Not Enough (and most Converge albums), guitarist Kurt Ballou recorded and mixed Hum Of Hurt. He got some help from Zach Weeks this time. Bannon says that the titular phrase is a sort of ambient cross-cultural current of suffering: "What if 'The Hum' is the culmination of all the pain in the world, creating an audible signal across the universe? Something noticeable to others operating on a similar emotional plane."
The song's title track isn't "emotional hardcore" in the way that the term was originally understood, but it's emotional, and it's hardcore. It's a big fucking D-beat battering ram and a true showcase for one of the most unstoppable rhythm sections on the face of the planet. Below, check out that song, the Hum Of Hurt tracklist, and Converge's upcoming tour dates.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Slip The Noose"
02 "Doom In Bloom"
03 "It Only Gets Worse"
04 "Detonator"
05 "I Won't Let You Go"
06 "It's Not Up To Us"
07 "Dream Debris"
08 "It Used To Matter"
09 "Hum Of Hurt"
10 "Nothing Is Over"
TOUR DATES:
4/02 - Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues #
4/03 - Chicago, IL @ Concord Music Hall #
4/04 - Pontiac, MI @ Crofoot #
4/05 - Dayton, OH @ The Hidden Gem
4/06 - New Kensington, PA @ Preserving Underground #
4/07 - Toronto, ON @ History #
4/08 - Montreal, QC @ Theatre Fairmont
4/09 - Worcester, MA @ Palladium #
4/10 - New York, NY @ Knockdown Center #
4/11 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore #
4/12 - Baltimore, MD @ Nevermore Hall #
5/07 - Denver, CO @ Summit %
5/09 - Austin, TX @ Stubbs Outdoors %
5/10 - Houston, TX @ House of Blues %
5/12 - Mesa, AZ @ The Nile %
5/13 - Los Angeles, CA @ Belasco %
5/15 - Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues %
5/16 - San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park %
5/17 - San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Ballroom %
6/25 - Ysselsteyn, Netherlands @ Jera on Air
6/26 - Rennes, France @ Superbowl of Hardcore
6/27 - Manchester, UK @ Outbreak Festival
6/28 - Antwerp, Belgium @ Kavka Zappa ^
6/29 - Cologne, Germany @ Essigfabrik ^
7/01 - Trutnov, Czech Republic @ Obscene Extreme Festival
7/02 - Vienna, Austria @ Arena ^
7/03 - Milan, Italy @ Circolo Magnolia ^
7/04 - Viveiro, Spain @ Resurrection Fest
# with Poison the Well, Spy, & Balmora
% with Poison the Well, the Armed, & the Barbarians of California
^ with Heriot, Boneflower, & Crouch
Hum Of Hurt is out 6/5 on Deathwish, Inc./Epitaph.
