Converge – All We Love We Leave Behind

With so much made of “tricky” second and third albums, not many platitudes exist to explain the challenge faced by those bands with the gumption to last to their 8th full-lengther. If Converge are anything to go by, however, apparently it gets easy after number three. Since nailing their formula on 2001's ground-breaking Jane Doe, there has scarcely been a more prolific heavy band in history.

All We Love We Leave Behind continues the trend with 14 undiluted fistfuls of progressive hardcore fury (there are no external collaborators on board this time around). The quartet are as feral yet meticulous as ever before, really finding their stride on numbers like the compelling Trespasses and the playfully retro Vicious Muse, not to mention Sadness Comes Home with its flamboyant finger tapping and nods to Mastodon. Quite how they continue to wring such invention from a genre so vulnerable to musical regurgitation is rather startling.