3 out of 5
Label: Epitaph
Produced by: Kurt Ballou
Prior to Love Is Not Enough’s release, I knew a new Converge album was coming, and that’s always a reason to get excited. I jumped on to their fandom quite late and quite after Jane Doe, but I got it quickly and became fascinated with their journey over the years, and the way albums would or wouldn’t land with me at first, but then settle into their place, higher or lower in some generalized ranking depending on how punky or mathy or yelly or emotey I was feeling.
Bearing that in mind, that I wasn’t too wowed with Love’s first singles felt fine; they were going for some kind of visceral “back to basics”-esque vibe that seemed like an understandable response to the far-reaching Dusk In Us and an experimental album with Chelsea Wolfe, and I was betting that the tracks would hit me when hearing them in context.
The album was released to acclaim, and I felt a bit of wariness at how often Jane Doe was referenced: that album has often been the reference for the band, and tying that together with my specific response to the singles, I wondered if my take was going to be a bit cooler than the average, hearing the material as… reaching, which happened on Dusk as well, though only in small takes, like when the group got too far off of the standard Converge path, they’d rush back with something loud and complex (and a little hollow).
Love Is Not Enough is not trying, nor is it hollow; considering singer Jacob Bannon was nearly 50 at the time of its release, the power of his vocal delivery – while maybe missing the gymnastics of his youth – has not dimmed, and if anything, he’s learned how to wield it more effectively. Kurt Ballou has continued honing his production, really bringing out space in the low end where before it was all volume; and drummer and bassist Ben Koller and Nate Newton use that space like pros, the former ditching the endless speed fills of the past for balancing pounding hardcore drums with more rhythmic sections, and Newton giving the songs melody, with Ballou bringing the momentum on the chugga chugga and on-a-dime Slayer solos.
But: when the album was released, I had to kind of confirm that I wasn’t buying a rerelease of something. In all seriousness, as the title feels tonally similar to All We Love We Leave Behind and The Dusk In Us, and the album art blends familiar angel imagery with Jane Doe’s color palette, and structural notes from No Heroes, and the band has been at the rerelease game previously, I wondered if this was some compilation that was being put out before the full album, maybe. Rather, this all felt symbolic of my eventual reception of Love Is Not Enough.
The performances are killer, and tight, to a fault. Bannon’s lyrics have always been a bit general – Opiate Of The Masses; What Have I Done Wrong – but as these last two releases have found him perfecting his delivery (and that it’s balanced in mix via Ballou), now we’re hearing every word, and though some lines find some good barbs, that generalness otherwise doesn’t always match the intensity of the singing. Love’s macro sequencing is “easy” on the listener, delivering on the barn-burning punkers up front, cleanly divided by a short, drone-ish instrumental before the longer tracks kick in; and on a micro level, man, it’s been a while since I’ve heard so many Converge songs that just don’t surprise me. Until the closers of Make Me Forget You and We Were Never the Same bring in the tempo changes and denseness that have stood the band apart since the beginning, but especially since Jane, most of Love is just a bit too familiar, or like the band decided to rewrite some older material to match their current style.
Because there are few who can do this as consistently and as well as Converge, Love Is Not Enough is definitely a solid listen. And certainly I could experience the “reranking” of this album as I have with others, except: this is the first one that went down pretty easy from start to finish, that I didn’t have to think much about before settling on a review.
