Dustin Kensrue has released the music video for “It’s Not Enough,” the first preview of his forthcoming album, The Water & the Blood.
Best known as the singer, guitarist and principal lyricist for Thrice, Kensrue has never been particularly interested in separating spiritual questions from the rest of human experience. “It’s Not Enough” brings those questions to the foreground, examining the many places people look for meaning and finding each one incapable of carrying the full weight.
The song works through an almost exhaustive list of possibilities: wealth, recognition, romantic love, good works, self-discovery and unrestrained appetite. Kensrue considers both ends of the moral spectrum, from serving others to consuming everything within reach, and arrives at the same conclusion each time. None of it can make a person whole.
That repetition gives the song its force. “It’s Not Enough” is not merely dismissing money or pleasure as shallow distractions. Kensrue also questions whether accomplishment, admiration and even an outwardly virtuous life can provide the ultimate satisfaction people ask of them.
The music carries that argument with more tension than the average congregational song. Kensrue begins with a restrained vocal and sparse arrangement before the track gradually expands around him. By the time the refrain returns in full, the song feels less like a tidy answer and more like someone reaching the end of every available road.
The Water & the Blood is Kensrue’s first full-length worship album under his own name. Produced by Brian Eichelberger, the project draws from rock, folk and traditional hymn writing while retaining the lyrical precision familiar to Thrice listeners.
The album’s title comes from the hymn “Rock of Ages,” which Kensrue also revisits on the record. Rather than treating worship music as a reason to simplify his writing, he approaches the form with the same attention to imagery and structure that has long defined his work.
“It’s Not Enough” makes that approach clear. The song does not offer faith as one more item to add to an already crowded search for fulfillment. It argues that every lesser pursuit eventually reveals the shape of what it cannot provide.
The Water & the Blood will be released Oct. 1 through BEC Recordings and Mars Hill Music.
Watch “It’s Not Enough” below.