Converge: Hum of Hurt, The Monstrous Twin

 

A genuine watershed moment. Just a couple of months ago, in February, Converge delivered what I thought would be impossible to top. I was wrong. With more than 30 years of career behind them, Jacob Bannon, Kurt Ballou, Nate Newton, and Ben Koller have just released one of the best records in their history. They’ve done it twice in the same year.

Hum of Hurt is not a sequel to Love Is Not Enough. It’s not a collection of studio leftovers. Both albums were born during the same recording sessions. Converge finished Love Is Not Enough, set it aside as if it didn’t exist, and then recorded Hum of Hurt. Two parallel worlds built at the same time, with the same human material, but in completely opposite directions. Converge was no longer the same band after finishing the first record.

Love Is Not Enough sounds calculated and under control. It has metalcore and mathcore elements that give it structure and restraint. Hum of Hurt is something else entirely. It’s anarchic and uncontainable. It’s pure energy, pure sound, more noise rock and more hardcore than ever, with emotions overflowing in every minute.

The process confirms it. Love Is Not Enough took time to build, layer by layer. Hum of Hurt was immediate, an explosion. Producer Kurt Ballou kept many first takes as final because the raw immediacy contained the truth of the record. There’s more improvisation. There are mistakes admitted by the band during performance that they simply accepted as part of the creative process and composition. That makes it more unique and dynamic.

Love Is Not Enough was surgical in its attack. Hum of Hurt is impulsive and organic, which gives it more life, more texture, and an intensity that few bands in the world can sustain. The evil twin of Love Is Not Enough. And perhaps the better one.

Converge returned after more than a decade of absence with brutal urgency, the urgency of those who know youth has passed and there’s less time ahead. But no less talent. No less experience. That has only grown to the skies. In Love Is Not Enough, the beast was back. In Hum of Hurt, the beast has realized it is not eternal.

The ringing in the ear that gives the album its name reminds them of loss, of what dies, what rots, what slowly disintegrates. Hum of Hurt is the result of understanding, in this second and final part of life, that one is not what they wanted to be. And that hurts. It really hurts. But the swan song is beautiful precisely because it knows it is the last.

The imperfection of this record becomes its greatest quality. A powerful humanity pushed to the limit. Embracing vulnerability has made them more powerful than ever.

Ben Koller is incredible throughout the album. His muscle is the perfect anchor for every track. On Slip the Noose, he simply launches the band and lifts them into the clouds with disarming precision. It Only Gets Worse is some of the most intense and lethal material Converge has ever done in their entire career. A hurricane that steals the oxygen. The sound of everything going to shit all at once, without warning.

Detonator is Ballou and Newton’s moment, pushing those rusted strings to the absolute sonic limit. A rhythm that gives no respite and atmospheric guitars that envelop everything. Newton has another great moment on Dream Debris, where his presence is so physical you can feel it in your chest.

I Won’t Let You Go is probably the best track on Hum of Hurt. The band at the peak of their powers, better than ever, playing as if it were the last time, because maybe it is. Hum of Hurt reminds us of that small hum that builds up unnoticed until one day it drives us crazy and carries us to the grave. Ballou shining on every note. A work that hurts to listen to and is impossible to let go.