The Band
Knocked Loose is an American hardcore punk band formed in 2013.
Band Members
- Bryan Garris – vocals
- Isaac Hale – lead guitar, vocals
- Nicko Calderon – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
- Kevin Otten – bass
- Kevin Kaine – drums
The Album
The band released their third studio album, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To, on May 10, 2024. The album maintains the hardcore punk style of Knocked Loose, their essence, but mixes it with metalcore.
The overall theme of the album is about questioning our own beliefs. Not blindly following what others have told you when you were younger.
The Songs
1. Thirst. The intro song of the album starts with Bryan’s scream.
2. Piece By Piece. It has an industrial, nu-metal vibe. Slow in some parts, sludgy.
3. Suffocate (ft. Poppy). One of the singles. My favorite song on the album.
Sick initial guitar riff and Bryan screams “Suffocate”.
Reggaeton percussion vibe breakdown, which is interrupted by Poppy’s visceral yell. Then, Bryan and Poppy sing together. They sound super similar, with high-pitched menacing screams. Great collaboration.
Bryan said that they are fans of Poppy, but she was the one who reached out to them to make a song together. The band immediately loved the idea and wrote the heaviest song on the record to her.
4. Don’t Reach For Me. Another single. Multiple Breakdowns with different intensities during the song, and some style changes. A bass section in the middle. Bass and drums give the song an interesting seasoning.
5. Moss Covers All. 46 seconds of chaos and heaviness with a big breakdown and then some creepy guitar notes that serve to transition to the next song.
6. Take Me Home. To the previous guitar notes now it’s added the cymbals, drums, the rest of the band, and Bryan’s screams. Those creepy notes are present during the whole song, in the background. The track finishes with a bit of an old radio song, that increases the scary vibe.
7. Slaughterhouse 2 (ft. Chris Motionless). This is the sequel of the Motionless In White’s song, Slaughterhouse.
The guitar riff in the beginning has a kind of Slayer’s sound.
This track is slow, sludge, with a certain heaviness. It has some callbacks to part 1, but musically, it is different.
The lyrics are from the point of view of the oppressed ones trying to put themselves in the oppression role, to understand them, but they soon realize that they can’t and that all that’s left is to face them.
Chris sings in some parts and delivers a satisfying blegh at the end. And I couldn’t be happier.
8. The Calm That Keeps You Awake. It begins with a Korn’s type of guitar. After that, the other guitar enters with a low tuning until Bryan starts to sing, it gets faster. A guttural leads to a heavy breakdown, sludge, and low, which ultimately ends the song.
9. Blinding Faith. A single with mosh moments and gutturals. A triple callout that is hard as f*ck that ends with Bryan’s pig squeal, a bree, just to go to the breakdown. Angry caveman noises, and I love it.
The song tackles the hypocrisy of many religious groups.
10. Sit & Mourn. It starts very calmly, and emotionally, almost giving the impression that it’s going to transform into a ballad, yet the instruments come like a blast. The main guitar riff is great. The whole song has a different style, softer but without stopping being heavy, the perfect way to end the album, in a more relaxing tone.
Final Thoughts
This is a heavy album that only lasts 27 minutes and 34 s, for 10 tracks. It has hardcore, metalcore, and nu-metal, all combined.
The first time I listened to Knocked Loose I didn’t like very much Bryan’s angry super high-pitched vocals. Then, I got used to it until his featuring in Motionless In White won me over. I guess it’s an acquired taste. I still don’t love his voice yet I think his type of scream it’s perfect for the style of music Knocked Loose makes. However, I would love to listen to him one day doing clean and other types of voices.
In Knocked Loose music, a lot of Korn’s style of riffs come together with the eeriness, anxiety, and trapped feeling that shows in their videos, which provides that sense of being in a horror movie.
The name of the album comes from when Bryan was very anxious and on the verge of a panic attack on a flight. He had his noise-canceling headphones as he was trying to meditate to calm down when a stewardess told him he could not use them during take-off. He was very nervous, but the woman next to him started talking to him and eventually ended up distracting him to the point he didn’t have a bad flight. Bryan told her that he flew all the time because of work (not revealing that he was a musician), but that he was always scared of flying. She told him not to worry and the phrase “you won’t go before you’re supposed to”, stuck with him. He loved it, wrote it on his phone, and then shared it with the band when they were looking for the album name and everyone liked it and liked the idea of naming their record like this.
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Tracklist
- Thirst
- Piece By Piece
- Suffocate (ft. Poppy)
- Don’t Reach For Me
- Miss Covers All
- Take Me Home
- Slaughterhouse 2 (ft. Chris Motionless)
- The Calm That Keeps You Awake
- Blinding Faith
- Sit & Mourn