Knocked Loose unleash their seething, experimental new single Don’t Reach For Me, a track that combines the band’s signature frenzied attack with deliberate catchiness and exhilarating sonic variety. After one listen, the song’s refrain — “I dream of a cleansing wave,” roared out by frontman Bryan Garris in his patented piercing, rueful bark — loops in the listener’s mind like a prime earworm, setting the stage for future live shout-alongs. Lyrically, Garris says, the track “may be the meanest song I’ve ever written,” a seismic takedown of “someone who tried their hardest to come into my life and mess with two out of the three closest people I have.” Don’t Reach For Me is available now alongside an arresting video directed and produced by Max Moore.
LISTEN / PLAYLIST / SHARE DON’T REACH FOR ME HERE
On You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To, Knocked Loose have honed in on a diverse, cohesive and savagely aggressive album that sums up the massive strides they’ve taken during their decade as a band, and asserts their boundless potential going forward. Internally, there was the need to challenge themselves as songwriters while retaining the merciless intensity and unflinching honesty that have always been their calling cards. Externally, there was a whole new set of eyes on the hard-touring Louisville quintet, following a banner year on the road, during which they’d brought their underground-seasoned sound to some of the world’s biggest stages.
From the start, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To plunges listeners into a cauldron of mental and spiritual anguish. But the album’s title contains a note of reassurance amid the turmoil. The phrase originates from an experience that Garris, who suffers from what he calls a “borderline phobia of flying,” had during a particularly trying flight. As he battled his nerves during takeoff, the vocalist found himself talking to a woman seated next to him. When he confided in her about his anxiety, she assured, “You won’t go before you’re supposed to.”
But glossing over negative emotions isn’t what Knocked Loose are about. The new songs find them plumbing through new depths of loathing — directed both inward and outward. Across 10 tracks and 27 gripping minutes, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To leans into Knocked Loose’s most extreme impulses, from blastbeat-driven fury, chaotic turbulence and seismic breakdowns, while seasoning the mix with ear-catching auxiliary percussion, evocative samples and shout-along hooks, all interwoven to perfection by Grammy-nominated, pop-savy producer Drew “WZRD BLD” Fulk.
You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To is filled with boundary-pushing textures and samples the band has collected over the years. On “Suffocate,” Garris teams up with pop-meets-metal trailblazer Poppy, for an effort that contrasts an oppressive heaviness befitting the title with a dance-y, syncopated groove and the most concussive reggaeton rhythm you’ve ever heard. Samples of what sounds like meditative singing bowls open the album to “Take Me Home,” with its spoken-word intro, ear-catching auxiliary percussion and brief yet evocative concluding country-song snippet. Elements like these only make the breakneck blur of a track like “Moss Covers All,” a song that Garris says deals with his ever-present longing for the comfort of home, feel that much more urgent.
“On this album, we go the fastest we’ve ever gone; we go the scariest we’ve ever gone. We also go the catchiest and the most melodic that we’ve ever gone, and that’s the point,” guitarist Isaac Hale says. “Instead of branching off into a specific direction, we want to encompass ALL directions.”
There’s no ceiling for hardcore in 2024 — even an outfit as uncompromising as Knocked Loose can turn up in mainstream-adjacent spaces and win over new fans (see 2023’s viral Coachella and Bonnaroo sets). But there’s a center to what they do that will never change: uncompromising heaviness, both sonically and thematically. What is evolving is their drive to find new ways to convey that heaviness, and add tasteful variety that only highlights their undiminished ferocity. Everywhere Knocked Loose have been is here on this record — but so is everywhere they may yet go.
Knocked Loose’s headlining North American tour kicks off with a performance at Sick New World in Las Vegas later this month. The run hits both coasts and includes two sold out nights in New York City at Brooklyn Steel and Terminal 5 plus sold out shows at Austin’s Stubbs Amphitheater, The Shrine in Los Angeles and more. Show Me The Body, Loathe and Speed will support.
