Converge : Hum of Hurt
There’s no going back to basics for a band like Converge because to do so would require there to be any “basics” to begin with. There is precisely one conventional(-ish) hardcore album in Converge’s discography, and from there the band’s been on a continuous mission to refine, redefine and reinvent themselves. Their signature sound is one of intensity above all, but with a thoughtful and ambitiously unsettled collision of melody, urgency and emotion driving it at all times. Which makes the veteran metallic hardcore band’s return with the 30-minute sprint and surge of Love Is Not Enough in February less a return to form following 2021’s gothic doom collaboration Bloodmoon: I than a swing of the pendulum back in the direction of their most explosive tendencies.
What Converge neglected to let on at the dawn of 2026 was that they continued riding that scythe swing back from the highest point of its arc, creating yet another half-hour of aggression and abrasion that draws more from the sandpaper scrape of noise rock. Hum of Hurt, the group’s second album in six months, is less a forward sprint than a tumble through twisted time signatures and pigfuck riffs, its visceral darkness providing an even more complex counterpart to the already fantastic first set of music they’ve released this year.
Ben Koller’s rapid opening drumrolls on “Slip the Noose” are the only introduction Converge deem necessary before surging right into Hum of Hurt‘s gnarled nastiness. There’s no throat clearing, no pageantry, just a tumble into the gauntlet, the 5/4 chug of that opening track transitioning swiftly into the menacing noise rock grind of “Doom in Bloom,” as vocalist Jacob Bannon lashes out with barks of “No one has the right to judge me/As I pick at open wounds.” That the next track is titled “It Only Gets Worse” only suggests the dyspeptic mood of the album isn’t about to lift anytime soon, the song itself a dizzying web of dissonant riffs and shifting time signatures.
Where Love Is Not Enough provided both a mission statement of endurance and a taste of bitter medicine about the uncomfortable realities of relationships and personal growth, Hum of Hurt draws the focus back to the source of pain that holds us back. In a statement, Bannon connects the title to a widely documented phenomenon of people tormented by a particular noise, sometimes referred to as “The Hum”: “What if ‘The Hum’ is the culmination of all the pain in the world, creating an audible signal across the universe?” And time and again, that pain rises to the surface, whether in the form of a cry of “Sometimes the agony is just too much!” amid the sludgy tension of “Detonator” or the screams of “I’ve destroyed everything!” on the blistering “I Won’t Let You Go,” the one not-as-new song here, having originally appeared on the soundtrack to Cyberpunk 2077.
As is Converge’s tendency, they save a slot near the end of the album for its best song, the title track, a bigger and more climactic moment of catharsis that captures a cross section of the band’s darkest nuances and blistering aggression. “I know this one hurts,” Bannon screams in its gut-punch of a conclusion, “I’m not the man I wanted to be.” It’s an uncomfortable inward look, the likes of which have set Converge apart for their ability to confront that darkness; to use a phrase that Bannon used when speaking to Treble earlier this year, “the storm is always there.” But “Hum of Hurt” and the album’s other nine tracks also showcase Converge’s uncanny ability to disperse that darkness back outward and channel it into a resonant frequency.
Label: Epitaph
Year: 2026
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Converge : Hum of Hurt
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