Across 30-plus years of existence, the four-headed plasma ball of Converge have continuously elevated the metalcore genre to altitude-sickness levels. It’s important to acknowledge that the band has never betrayed their audience. The acclaimed collaboration with the opaque Chelsea Wolfe (2021’s Bloodmoon 1) had them accessing new listeners in a whole new context, but don’t confuse character with compromise.
Love Is Not Enough (Deathwish Inc./Epitaph) is a collection of aural ballistic tests that cut through metalcore’s predictability with extreme prejudice. Guitarist/producer Kurt Ballou is blessed with the gifts of turning tone into both menace (“Bad Faith,” “Gilded Cage”) and dungeon sound design (“Beyond Repair”). The engine room of bassist Nate Newton and drummer Ben Koller is well-versed in acceleration and velocity (“Force Meets Presence,” “Distract and Divide”) but on each album, their lumbering mid-tempo dirges do most of the heavy lifting.
And where frontman Jake Bannon is usually exhorting assaults on complacency or forays into nihilist self-loathing, he’s remarkably human here (the title track, “We Were Never the Same”), articulating great moments of love and loss.
There’s a Far East curse that translates as “May you live in interesting times.” You can’t help but think someone dropped this prophecy on the members of Converge decades ago and they’ve been doomsday-prepping via their art the whole time. Physical endurance is paramount in order to make this kind of music. However, Converge (like most of us) have had to acquire the coping mechanisms to exist in these current, really interesting times.
The 10 tracks on Love Is Not Enough are more than just a physical workout: they’re cardio for the brain. Now more than ever, we should be flexing our heads on the daily.
