Converge - Hum of Hurt - Fist in the Gold Indie Exclusive - LP

The menacing track “Detonator” delivers a powerful line that will linger: There’s nothing to win if there’s no one to lose. “I go on a bit of a rant here,” Bannon says. “The idea is that when passion withers, the broken and beaten often remain in discomfort. The song ends with the line, ‘Don't be blown apart by your mistakes,’ which sums up the stark mentality on this one.”   

The title track stands as one of the most propulsive and emotional songs of their career. Thematically, Bannon examines the price of the lives we pursue. “I’ve given 35 years of my life to creating art and music,” he says. “I appreciate the creative home and support this community has given, yet rarely is space left for anything else. These lyrics are me looking in a mirror, recognizing that I am not the man I want to be. I need change, and still have work to do.”   

The album also features a new rendition of “I Won’t Let You Go,” originally recorded for the 2020 video game Cyberpunk 2077. “When we recorded the first version, Ben tracked drums in California and we assembled it here,” Bannon explains. “It was good, but we knew we could do better. This version has everything the previous one was missing. It now feels right.”   

Hum of Hurt was recorded and mixed by Kurt Ballou at God City in Salem, Massachusetts, with engineering assistance from Zach Weeks. Bannon and renowned UK artist Thomas Hooper collaborated on the album artwork.    

“For the cover, I had a vision of an EKG signal fusing with some kind of volatile seismography. This amalgamation represents the conditions that would theoretically create a ‘Hum.’ Specifically the heart skips beats before dissolving into static. The signal is then interrupted by a seismic event at the center point of the cover. In conversation, I shared some of these ideas with artist Thomas Hooper, who offered to illustrate them using scientific diagrams as a source of inspiration. 
I then spent months creating a mixed media piece for the interior,” Bannon says. “The figures represent the five elements of our planet, or ‘Pancha Bhuta’: Prithvi (Earth), Ap (Water), Agni (Fire), Vayu (Air), and Akasha (Aether). I present them in the throws of chaos, as if the elements themselves are entangled in the Hum of Hurt.”  

Track Listing:
01. Slip The Noose
02. Doom In Bloom
03. It Only Gets Worse
04. Detonator
05. I Won't Let You Go
06. It's Not Up To Us
07. Dream Debris
08. It Used To Matter
09. Hum Of Hurt
10. Nothing Is Over