Knocked Loose’s Denial of Faith Leads To Facing Mortality in “You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To”

Knocked Loose has released their most anticipated and heaviest album to date, “You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To.”

Kentucky hardcore and metalcore based band, Knocked Loose has released their most defiant and darkest album yet, You Won’t Go Where You’re Supposed To through Pure Noise Records on May 10th 2024. The album features 10 tracks with a running time nearing only 28 minutes. Despite the short length album, each track is compiled with severe aggression and gruesome attributes that encompasses sorrowful sentiments. You Won’t Go Where You’re Supposed To additionally includes special collaborations unlike what the band has never done before. Knocked Loose reunited once again with Chris Motionless for a continuation of “Slaughterhouse 2” and a fierce partnership with Poppy on their track, “Suffocate”. 

With Knocked Loose taking over the metalcore scene with their growing fanbase and being known for their vengeful and chaotic breakdowns, the band has proven their stride into becoming the face of the hardcore community. Additionally Knocked Loose has been on the cover of multiple music magazine issues such as Revolver, New Noise, Kerrang! Rock Sound in promotion of their brand new record. 

Vocalist Bryan Garris revealed the inspirations behind the songwriting and its cathartic album title on The Downbeat Podcast hosted by the drummer of Stray Away From The Path, Craig Reynolds. The sudden realization of Garris’ anxiety attack due to flying and gastly weather conditions induced a striking conversation with a person sitting next to him on a plane. The woman sitting next to him comforted Garris by reciting “You Won’t Go When You’re Supposed To” alluding that the face of death won’t manifest out of thin air. You can listen to the full podcast here.

The record is an open narrative that revolves around the idea of the untimely fate of one’s impending death lurking around the corner. With each track filled with anxiety and existentialism that wanders into a void, the record upholds its status by the use of vivid imagery in its lyrics. The accompaniment between the heaviness and unsettling instrumentation conquers an affinity of massive self destruction and unnerving emotions.

Within the growth and experimental sounds of Knocked Loose’s discography over the recent years, it is apparent that they have garnered their attention towards adding elements that are contrived from different genres creating a unique and brotesque sound whilst staying true to their hardcore roots. Guitarist Issac Hale explained the process of creating the new album and the intentions behind You Won’t Go When You’re Supposed To as a lethargic experience unraveling the predisposition of the metal genre and its binding boundaries that has been recently expanding into unknown territory and evolving into a greater than life phenomenon. Hale mentioned that “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.“Instead of branching off into a specific direction, we want to encompass ALL directions.”

At the start, the opening track of the album begins with “Thirst” that immediately sets the tone of the voltous aftermath that is set to arrive. With an unsettling and lingering instrumental prefacing the record leading into an unruly eruption of screams by Garris. The gruesome visualization of the lyrics within the third verse “Dragging my knuckles forward but through the mud. Secluded lower form sickened by my thirst for change” regards the macabre in the highest notion channeling a fallen soul that is headed for the ultimate darkness. 

The first single of the album, Blinding Faith initiated the questioning of God, devout worship, and the denial of belief. The track embraces the extremities of the suffering pain that embodies a vengeful spirit. Rather than initiating contact with a higher power, Garris proclaims  “I will suffer here instead of biting my tongue. Condemned to a life of pain until my time has come. No promise of heaven will make me march. With my final breath, I deny the church.” leaving themself to rot than uphold the values of an imaginary conviction.

One of the most pressing tracks on the record, “Don’t Reach For Me” denotes a hatred ingrained with fury responding back to delinquent behavior troubling the life of Garris. The chorus of the track is a cutthroat acclamation that forages the malevolence tendencies of a person who hides behind the theology of God to appease their actions, “I dream of a cleansing wave. Set me free. I return to form. No longer bound to me. And when your arms are too weak to pull yourself back up. When your arms are too weak to reach for God, don’t reach for me.” With the upbrut and brutal nature of the lyricism it conveys a reinvention of taking back one’s name in the vain of another. 

The wildcard yet promising track “Suffocate” featuring Poppy has grown into a phenomenon that has altered the metalcore scene. The inclusion of additional musical stylings of a reggaeton breakdown caught fans by surprise and captured the attention of metalcore fans. The combination of an outlandish component embedded into a hardcore song has earned praise and appreciation for including different genres into a world of otherwise rigid stylings of metal. Followed by the everlasting strain of brutal misconceptions, Suffocate weighs the ideals of a duality with the verse of the track, “Eclipsing weight, strangled by every mistake. The wind will hush your cries. In the storm of your restless fate, haunting pride. Morals defied, are you conscious behind the knife, or is it just another disguise?”. The track embodies the characteristics of an unraveling misfortune that is ultimately faced with the horrors of fatal mortality.

You Won’t Go When You’re Supposed To dives into the lowest depths of the unknown and the hypocritical spectrum of belief and faith inciting the impending doom regarding the afterlife. The constant perseverance in maintaining combative breakdowns and implementing various new additions has led Knocked Loose into a dynamic force that won’t be untouched by the masses.

Knocked Loose is currently on their North American headline tour with support from Loathe, Show Me The Body, and Speed. Additionally the band will be opening for Slipknot on their summer tour. You can catch a show near you and buy tickets here.