The people of earth have been blessed this year with a second album from the Massachusetts metalcore pioneers in Converge. Love Is Not Enough, their first unrelenting release from February of this year, was a massive front load of raw anger and emotion, and was a worthy inclusion into discussion for one of the top records in Converge’s 12 album catalogue. Hum of Hurt shares those same attributes, but includes an even heavier dose of the incredible experimentation and boundary pushing that Converge are known for. As a big fan of dissonant bands and elements of noise in a lot of my music, this was a very exciting arena to see Converge push into, and they executed it brilliantly yet still wholly themselves. Love Is Not Enough and Hum of Hurt are not two albums that are fighting each other for space amongst fans, but rather complement each other in a way. Both albums bring something the other doesn’t to the table, and instead of feeling like something was missing from one or the other, they augmented one another.
Despite the extra surge of experimentation, there is still no shortage of absolutely blistering riffs from guitarist Kurt Ballou and shrieks from vocalist Jacob Bannon. Instead, they feel more akin to deep, deep pain and mourning instead of the anger and ferocity displayed in Love Is Not Enough. The title track is a perfect example of this, as well as ‘Detonator’. The 8½ minute combination of ‘Dream Debris’ followed by the instrumental track ‘It Used to Matter’ is one of the most important and introspective points of this record, and it flawlessly encapsulates the concept of a collective hurt humming through the earth. For a band to drop one great record is always a great experience, but getting two in one year? That’s something worth truly remembering.
Rating: 95/100
Notable Tracks: Detonator, Dream Debris, Hum of Hurt
