Not counting 2021’s Bloodmoon: I, their collaborative LP with Chelsea Wolfe, Love Is Not Enough marked Converge’s first album in nearly a decade. It came out in February, and the hardcore legends have already announced its follow-up. Hum of Hurt is set for release June 6 via Deathwish/Epitaph, and the ferocious title track is out now. Check it out below.
“When we came together to write, we ended up with a wealth of material,” frontman Jakob Bannon explained in a press release. “As work progressed we realized we had created two separate albums, and treated them as such.” He added, “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.”
The new LP was once again recorded and mixed by guitarist Kurt Ballou, with engineering assistance from Zach Weeks. Bannon and UK artist Thomas Hooper collaborated on the album artwork. “For the cover, I had a vision of an EKG signal fusing with some kind of volatile seismography,” Bannon reflected.
He continued: “This amalgamation represents the conditions that would theoretically create a ‘Hum.’ Specifically the heart skips beats before dissolving into static. The signal is then interrupted by a seismic event at the center point of the cover. In conversation, I shared some of these ideas with artist Thomas Hooper, who offered to illustrate them using scientific diagrams as a source of inspiration. I then spent months creating a mixed media piece for the interior. The figures represent the five elements of our planet, or ‘Pancha Bhuta’: Prithvi (Earth), Ap (Water), Agni (Fire), Vayu (Air), and Akasha (Aether). I present them in the throws of chaos, as if the elements themselves are entangled in the Hum of Hurt.”
Hum of Hurt Cover Artwork:
Hum of Hurt Tracklist:
1. Slip The Noose
2. Doom In Bloom
3. It Only Gets Worse
4. Detonator
5. I Won’t Let You Go
6. It’s Not Up To Us
7. Dream Debris
8. It Used To Matter
9. Hum Of Hurt
10. Nothing Is Over
