Live at Electric Brixton in London: Converge

long would create one of their best works for their eleventh album,

in their 35th year as a band. And yet: Love is Not Enough may have

been the apotheosis of CONVERGE’s decades-long journey

through the Punk, Hardcore and Metal microcosm. What vocalist/

lyricist Jacob Bannon, guitarist/producer Kurt Ballou, bassist/

vocalist Nate Newton and drummer Ben Koller have created is a

strident artistic statement on the turmoil of living that hones their

collective strengths to a razor’s edge.

“There’s always obstacles in the world,” Bannon says. “Personal,

professional, economical, whatever. But I feel like we’re in a

pressure cooker somewhere on our evolutionary line. It’s a lot just

to be a human being in the modern world, trying to function,

maintain, grow, have empathy, have compassion. It takes more than

it used to, to do all those things.”

“I think that realism is missing from a lot of modern music of any

genre, but especially our genre,” Bannon says. “Things either go

super raw and almost chaotic to the point where it's distracting, or

bands take the life out of what they’re doing by editing every

aspect.”

“We still identify this band as the outlet that’s essential to our lives,”

Bannon says. “We give everything we have to it. Being past your

average middle age, we’re starting to see deeper than before into a

variety of places. And I don’t think that’s specific to us. I think that’s

something that’s utterly relatable.”