The album is produced by the band's guitarist Kurt Ballou. Ben Koller announced during an interview that the band was planning to start tracking for a new album in the Spring of 2017. Following their tour on April 8, Converge promptly headed into the studio to record their next album. While eighteen songs were written for the album, only thirteen made it on to the album. One of the five non-album tracks, "Eve" was released as a b-side to the album's lead single "I Can Tell You About Pain". The band were unsure if the remaining four tracks would be released, however Ballou stated that the songs would possibly be released at some point; "We all disagreed about what the strongest songs were, and which songs made for the best record. I think we're all equally unhappy with what ended up on the album. It was a compromise. Some of the songs on that album are actually some of the weakest ones that we recorded, and some of the ones that aren't on the album are the strongest. We're just not exactly sure how we're going to release them yet. Whether it's B-sides, or an EP, we don't know yet." All the four remaining tracks were eventually released on the Beautiful Ruin EP, which came out on June 29, 2018.
Release and promotion
On May 27, 2017, DigBoston published an interview with the band's vocalist, Jacob Bannon, where he revealed that the band had eighteen songs already written and he stated that the album is "very powerful" and will be a "progression of something did previously." On July 25, 2017, Converge released the single "I Can Tell You About Pain", accompanied by a video for the song, directed by Tony Wolski. The single also contained the non-album track “Eve” as a B-side. On August 15, Converge released the song "Under Duress" available for streaming, which was described by Bannon as his "emotional reaction to the complex world in which we live". With the announcement of the song, the album's tracklist and cover art was revealed. The band toured in Europe in August 2017 prior to the release. On September 27, the song “Reptilian” was made available for streaming. The song "A Single Tear" was made available for streaming on October 31 and was also accompanied by a video, directed by Max Moore, described as "heavy with symbolism about parenthood and connection." The Dusk in Us was released through Epitaph Records and Deathwish Inc. on November 3, 2017.
Reception
The Dusk in Us was met with universal critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, it received an average score of 89 based on 18 reviews. Exclaim!s Joe Smith-Engelhardt praised Converge for "pushing their sound to new levels in a way that is uniquely their own."
