At this point, the term ‘metalcore’ feels somewhat misleading. Listening to modern day genre-leaders like Bring Me The Horizon or Bad Omens, it can often be difficult to parcel out the hardcore influence, if it exists at all— when the electronic textures and rapped vocals that have come to define the style are staring you straight in the face, it’s easy to forget that metalcore used to mean something quite different. In the early 2000s, it was the unrelenting aggression and technical savagery of groups like Converge that were pushing the sound forward: to this day, ‘Jane Doe’ stands as one of metalcore’s most celebrated releases. Twenty six years later, ‘Love Is Not Enough’ proves that the four-piece can still make your skin crawl.

Converge have been fairly absent this decade, with their only project in the 2020s being their collaborative effort with Chelsea Wolfe ‘Bloodmoon: I’— as far as mainstay albums are concerned, the group haven’t treated us to anything since 2017’s ‘The Dusk In Us.’ If those nine years were of any consequence to Bannon and company, it isn’t showing: the new record’s title track wastes no time settling itself (or the band, who needs no introduction at this point) up, throwing us into its first towering riff like a bloodhound attacks a bone. Where previous efforts from the band saw them experimenting with a range of styles and influences, ‘Love Is Not Enough’ is somewhat more direct and straightforward in its presentation. Converge’s influences from punk, hardcore and metal are all at the absolute forefront of the opening number, which crams blistering thrash riffs and anthemic hooks together into a dizzying, desperate blur. At only 31 minutes in length, the record is hardly attempting to be some opulent display of songwriting or musical construction: it simply wants to rip your face off.

‘Love Is Not Enough’ is not the most barbaric record Converge have ever penned— that honour surely still belongs to the overwhelming pain conjured by ‘Jane Doe’— but it remains an exercise in metal excess that few bands could replicate. One need only observe the smack-your-head-against-a-wall guitar chugs on ‘Force Meets Pressure’ to see that this is a disgustingly intense record, pushed to the extreme in post. Jacob Bannon’s vocals feel somewhat more controlled and intentional here than on previous records, and it’s a choice that suits the sharp and cutthroat nature of the music itself: even if some listeners may prefer the enraged snarls of ‘We Were Never the Same’ to the punk-infused vocal style he adopts on ‘Gilded Cage,’ one can never escape the dominating presence of his voice. Every member of Converge vies for attention whenever possible, as if the four-piece had a bet going for who could break the most guitar strings and drum shells in the studio. The bold technicality of previous outings has been more-or-less traded in for inarguably intense playing from Kurt Ballou and Nate Newton— drummer Ben Koller, it seems, just couldn’t help but inject energy and drive into every beat and fill.

So yes, as you may have surmised, the ten tracks Converge have come out with in 2026 are positively blood-curdling. ‘Bad Faith’ bounces between stomping hardcore riffs and choruses so full of tension, they feel like they’re about to snap in half— if anything, the track is one of the more controlled on the album, followed as it is by the crushing weight and politically-charged cries of ‘Distract and Divide.’ ‘Love Is Not Enough’ does allow the listener some brief reprieve (in the form of skulking interlude ‘Beyond Repair’ and the atmosphere-thick ‘Gilded Cage’) but these are sparing, and suffocating on their own accord: rumbling bass lines and dystopian dread are just some of the haunting ideas being toyed with on one of the most oppressive albums of 2026 thus far. The real meat of the record is those frenetic displays of power, and they aren’t hard to find. ‘Amon Amok’ drags a tangible heft with it, lurching towards the gnarly breakdown in its second half like a killer shuffles towards its prey: Converge do genuinely manage to become quite frightening at times, even when a cut like ‘Make Me Forget You’ reminds you of just how human and vulnerable the four-piece are.

Pain and suffering run like rivers through all of Bannon and company’s work, and this is far from the exception: though it’s hardly the most ambitious or emotionally devastating release in their shockingly consistent catalogue, ‘Love Is Not Enough’ will put a fear into you like few albums in 2026. Metalcore has changed a lot in the past thirty years, but it never left Converge behind: the four-piece are still putting out some of the most exciting and punishing music in the scene.