Kentucky-based Knocked Loose is an underground hardcore punk/metalcore band that has peeked the interest of a lot of people with their EP Pop Culture. Vocalist Bryan Garris calls their first full-length Laugh Tracks a new chapter for the band. Sounds all really promising, so I happily pressed play on this record and geared up for half an hour of hardcore brutality.

And brutality almost doesn’t cover the load of this release! From start to finish these guys drag you along into their world of rage, frustration and passion. The very first riffs they crank out of their guitars are as heavy as the heaviest metal on the Mendeleev periodic table and it rather sounds like a brutal death metal band geared up to smash your face with a sledge hammer. When the vocals kick in you get a first hint at their hardcore background with the sort of “I’m shouting my throat to smithereens” touch to it. And it goes on like this throughout Oblivions Peak and the rest of the album: a perfect blend of relentless hardcore with hints of brutal death metal and pants-dropping sludge into a sweltering pool of darkness and destructive raging. On top of that as good as every song on Laugh Tracks has that perfect monstrosity of a breakdown that’ll reap bodies in the moshpit, just check out their first single Deadringer!

If you weren’t convinced yet of how much Knocked Loose is ready for the fight, just turn to Blood Will Have Blood. The riffs, breakdowns, drums, bass and vocals just bring out an urge to jump up into a roundhouse kick and start a pogo! Their shortest song Counting Worms summarizes perfectly what they stand for: frustration, desperation and brutal darkness. The song lasts a bit over a minute and has the shortest lyrics ever: “I wrote a song about getting better. It’s a feeling I can’t remember, counting worms.” Last Words builds further on this desperation lyrically and musically it kicks off with what seems like faraway shouting that reminds me of a great Belgian band called .Callibre (check them out, really!). And with the line “Agony in vain!” heavy sludge metal riffs drag you to the very depths of their despair to then take it up several gears into a brutal hardcore punk/metal speed.

Knocked Loose basically knocked me off my feet with Laugh Tracks. With their hardcore-schooled metalcore without any of the melodic shit you usually find they are ready to blow the underground scene to pieces and break out into a much wider environment! Extra credit for the “laugh track” at the very end of the album… what a contradiction to the whole album! Got me a smile on my face every time! 8,5/10 for this nuclear attack with nothing to laugh about.

Release date: September 16th, 2016
Label: Pure Noise Records
Tracklist:
1. Oblivions Peak
2. Deadringer
3. The Rain
4. Blood Will Have Blood
5. Counting Worms
6. My Heroes
7. Billy No Mates
8. Last Words
9. No Thanks
10. A Fetish
11. Laugh Tracks