by DAN SOUTHALL
KNOCKED Loose have worked hard since their debut release in 2016 to be the leading edge in modern hardcore. Not all the fiddly electronica-infused guff that keeps getting passed off as hardcore – genuine balls to the wall, circle pitting and two stepping hardcore, the stuff that makes you want to run through walls and climb mountains in your favourite flanno. With their ascension through the ranks comes media attention, with media popularity bands soften up to ensure maximum traction. But not here. Oh no, Knocked Loose may have just built their heaviest album yet.
Opener ‘Thirst’ builds on popular expectation for around thirty seconds before kicking over everything in the way and trying to bite you before the first of (many) breakdowns to come. Knocked Loose are not here to mess about. This is pit brutality for the prepared, proving as bands like Pantera have before them, that it pays to double down on the heavy when the ‘cool’ kids are looking to weed out the real ones from the chaff.
For added weight to this argument, KL welcome pop-metal queen Poppy along on ‘Suffocate’, powered by she and Brian Garris screeching in unison before dropping into a heavy groove-laden breakdown that will start circle pits for years to come.
Knocked Loose are willing to play with their formula just enough to ensure everything stays memorable in its own right, from the swampy lunacy of ‘Moss Covers All’ or the maniacal ‘Slaughterhouse 2’ with Chris Motionless from Motionless in White – a track being a sort of sequel to one Garris was a guest on the last MIW release – or the clean guitar picking and open drum patterns on the track that rests between those two.
Closing in much the same way it opened ‘Sit & Mourn’, gives the listener just enough time for rest and reflect before smashing you one more time in the face with a big brick, hanging the album title out to dry as a casual passing line in the album.
As a big fan of hardcore in most of its forms old and new I have always struggled to gather the right descriptors together to explain how great some albums are. It’s the feeling, the vibe…get it. This album is out to prove a point, and it does. People will be talking about this album in the pantheon of hardcore greats, because it is so well done you are guaranteed to keep coming back to it.
