REVIEW: Converge - Love Is Not Enough

Thirty five years into their career CONVERGE is ready to release their eleventh full length album to the world. Calling it the apotheosis of their journey through the music industry and what it means to really be metal, the album encapsulates the sound that they have worked towards all these years. Love Is Not Enough is extremely concentrated with no filler tracks or ones that drop into a mix but just ten full tracks of pure metalcore and punk that comment on the political climate as well as touching on life and its never ending uncertainty. It's experimental in its walk while maintaining its high quality, tracks someone with a keen ear or music as we as a brain dead metal head can soundtrack their days to. 

The album opens up with its title track Love Is Not Enough, a shorter track that summarises the album well, introducing you to what will follow. The track drops you straight into riff lined carnage with heavy crash usage and cathartic screaming vocals. The vocals switch it up to more of a punk shout for the middle of the track before going back to screams, showing versatility that doesn't at all seem out of place or forced. Bad Faith has heavy riffs and a bouncy bass exploring more of a nu metal pace that will have any listener bopping their head along. Again the track blends screams but these are layered at times in a crowding shout giving it a different texture than the last track. The drums dance along with the guitar riffs, diverging from the traditional drum beats becoming an almost melodic component, some great work from their drummer BEN KOLLER.  

The next track as in its name Distract And Divide brings a more political and authentically punk narrative to the album and the music thrashes the listener around to reflect that, the track is short and hits like a punch to the gut. To Feel Something runs at a similar pace but brings in screeching industrial-esque instrumentals, it's another shorter track but packs so much into its two minute runtime it requires another listen just to absorb all the elements of the song. Beyond Repair is an atmospheric instrumental track, portraying a feeling of impending doom through reverbing guitars and slow echoing drums. Despite being vocal free it adds a whole different feeling to the album and stands out rather than blending into the background or being used as a transition. 

Amon Amok brings total destruction with punk and metal coursing through its veins, it's a slower pace than the majority of the album but keeps the anger and fury red as can be. Vocalist JACOB BANNON being one of the two original members of the band stretches his voice far and wide across the track to encompass the genres melded together, its clear his many years of experience have massively contributed to his ability to both flip between vocal tones and mix them together. Force Meets Presence goes against the grain with its tempo sporadically it crashes together with no two bards being the same as the last. It is exactly the kind of the track you can picture a push pit opening up to with fists and kicks flying across a grungy dark venue, these are the kind of tracks that capture a feeling as close as you can get to a live show. Gilded Cage opens with a low and building guitar riff, almost emotive in tone before bringing in a really grungy and twangy bass line and industrial drums. The vocals are slow and cathartic like a cry for help dragging out and echoing through the track. The lyrics revert back to the oppression from political systems on those below them and calling for revolution against those in power, something the band clearly feel strongly about and again embody what it really means to be punk. 

Make Me Forget You is one last fast paced punch to the gut, but this one lasts almost five minutes. The drums don’t slow for even a moment being packed with blast beats and a baffling amount of fills, the attention to detail in each beat is truly impressive. The guitars and bass riffs ring loud and brutal on the ear drums as they crash in time with the vocals, layering together. The closing track of the album is We Were Never The Same, which brings it to a desolate end with the rawest track on the album. It explores the themes of mourning and grief in relation to those that maybe you can't relate to away from that. The number switches between halftime beats bringing its infrastructure right down to the ground and pummelling your ears. It comes to an abrupt end leaving the listener wanting more making the repeat button look lustrous to even the strongest metalheads. 

Overall Love Is Not Enough is raw, it's authentically punk and metal to its core. The album is clearly an amalgamation of all that it takes to stay an active band for thirty five years, this could even be the band's musical pinnacle, we’ll just have to wait and see if they can possibly top it. With shows lined up around the world for the rest of the year they have a huge 2026 ahead of them and we expect only the best. 

Score: 9/10 

Love Is Not Enough will be released on 13th February 2026 via Epitaph.

Words: Amy Smyth

Photos: Jason Zucco