Listen to a love letter to the next generation of the underground, curated by Converge

Welcome back to Selections, a series of artist-curated playlists from those in the know.

Three decades after they first formed and nine years after their last non-collaborative release, metallic hardcore veterans Converge have returned with their 11th album, Love Is Not Enough.

In that time, heavy music’s underground has grown more visible than ever before, and Converge’s metalcore blueprint is all over its evolving sounds and scenes. The world they’re re-entering has shifted, too, and this record sees the band reckon with it politically. Released on the eve of Valentine’s Day, Love Is Not Enough wears its core message plainly: love is a necessary foundation for how we move through the world and respond to its brutalities, but it isn’t the whole answer. Empathy, anger and action all have their place.

There’s no definitive resolution here, nor any polished sheen. The album is raw, unvarnished and at times so furiously intense it feels uncontrolled. Across ten tracks and just over 30 minutes, it embodies what heavy music does best, offering a space for emotional surrender as the band feel their way forward, confronting the darkness head-on through a torrent of noise.

To mark the release, bassist Nate Newton has curated a playlist, ‘Now is the Future of What?’, that serves as a love letter to a new generation of the underground music sharing the same sincerity and spirit that Converge have always stood for.

“I don’t know what the future of anything will be, especially not this music. My hope is that we embrace the humanity of creating music together. Human beings making music for human beings with all the honesty, beauty, ugliness, joy, and imperfection it entails,” he says. “Fuck algorithms and play counts. We’re here for the real shit. Enjoy.”