Knocked Loose

Kentucky's Knocked Loose forged a ferocious hybrid of hardcore punk and metalcore that immediately carved out space in the underground, with the Oldham County quintet dropping a pair of early EPs before signing to Pure Noise and unleashing their first full-length, the unyielding Laugh Tracks, in 2016. Subsequent releases continued sharpening their beatdown approach, as 2019's A Different Shade of Blue and 2024's You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To both surged into the upper tiers of the Billboard charts.

Screaming frontman Bryan Garris leads the five-piece, which also features guitarists Isaac Hale and Cole Crutchfield, bassist Kevin Otten, and drummer Dylan Isaacs. The lineup's roots stretch to 2011, when Garris, Otten, and Hale initially joined forces with drummer Jared Barron of Concealer and Greyhaven; at the time, a teenage Garris sharpened his vocals alongside Barron in local groups before Isaacs became the permanent timekeeper. Their debut EP, Pop Culture, surfaced on Little Heart in 2014 and was swiftly followed by a split with Louisville's Damaged Goods. Laugh Tracks arrived two years later on Pure Noise, landing on the Billboard 200 while cracking the Top 50 across six additional charts.

For the punishing 2019 follow-up A Different Shade of Blue, the band enlisted engineer Will Putney, whose sessions folded thrash and melodic death metal textures into their already crushing style. The conceptual six-track EP Tear in the Fabric of Life, issued in 2021 and centered on themes of grief and isolation, arrived with an accompanying short animated film directed by Swedish filmmaker Magnus Jonsson. In 2023 the double-single Upon Loss paired "Deep in the Willow" with "Everything Is Quiet Now," both produced by Drew Fulks, aka WZRD BLD. February 2024 brought word that the third album, You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To, would drop that May; returning to the Grammy-nominated pop producer, Knocked Loose pushed modern hardcore in fresh directions across ten inventive and unrelenting tracks that featured Poppy and Chris Motionless, ultimately debuting at number 23 on the Billboard 200 and registering on international charts.