“We’ll take what is deserved.”
Converge boasts a discography containing no major missteps, not a single bad album (fuck you, Halo In A Haystack is sick). Now a full 25 years removed from the landmark Jane Doe, they dig deeper into their 4th decade as a band, one they started off with the collaborative effort Bloodmoon I alongside Chelsea Wolfe. This time, they drop their first solo album nearly a decade after the excellent The Dusk In Us. The question, naturally, is do they still have it in their late 40s and early 50s, can they still rip, do the riffs still bite, etc.
Be still, don’t breathe, there’s no end in sight,
We prey on those naivety provides.
We must grow to stomach the taste of our own blood,
We have to accept that love is not enough.
The title track, opener, and lead single answers that question in the affirmative. A chaotic tear through angular riffs, pummelling drums, plodding bass, it makes an immediate impression. A brief, indulgent guitar solo towards the middle gives way to a spiralling number, then that’s the track. This sets the tone for the first third of the album, and “Bad Faith” follows suit. Thrashier overtones vs. their typical material to start, otherwise standard (yet incredibly competent) fare.
A palpable shift with “Beyond Repair” ushers in the album’s sludgy side. A reprieve from the blistering tempos of the first third, even as “Amon Amok” turns the volume back up. These sound like funeral doom riffs sped up to walking pace, with double the force upon impact. This change-up helps the most memorable segments of the album, largely from here through to the penultimate track.
Speaking of thrash riffs, they make a thunderous return on parts of “Force Meets Presence”, suddenly sounding like something else entirely before dropping back to that base sound, even sounding a bit misplaced. On the other hand, at times it sounds reminiscent of KEN Mode, like in the verses on “Guilded Cage”, and no less oppressive at that. A bit of whiplash within and between tracks, sure, but it adds a fair bit of replay value.
The cost was the ones we let fall,
For us to live another day.
Our price was the innocence gone,
When we chose to not look away.
The closer “We Were Never the Same” ties us up with a brutal, bleak accounting. One complaint I can muster is that it’s a bit one dimensional compared to the album at large, but perhaps that’s the point, that this can only end one way. It makes sense thematically, and it towers over, looming incredibly large until its final moments. To end on a more vintage Converge cut like “Make Me Forget You” might feel too business as usual.
With that said, on Love Is Not Enough, they do deliver classic Converge, but in a slightly grimier, more stepped-on package. Atmospherically, things sound closed off, with the walls tightening and the floor rumbling. This record is for the times, as bleak as they seem, a fit for a slower burn off All We Love We Leave Behind. Well-trodden territory by and large, but as well done as you’ll hear it in the big 2026. Converge answers that same call as always.
8/10
Converge – Love Is Not Enough comes out this Friday, February 13th on Epitaph Records with pre-orders here.