A Tear In the Fabric of Life

Knocked Loose

Knocked Loose ring in spooky season with their latest EP A Tear In the Fabric of Life. This cinematic tale of late night tragedy begins with the impact of a car crash, the death of a partner, and recounts the aftermath that follows. The auditory and lyrical imagery is pretty intense. For example, hearing the Beach Boys sample get progressively more warped at the end of God Knows leads me to imagine the car radio finally giving out as it shuts down for good, or even more chilling, a person succumbing to their injuries. The lyrics, from my cursory readings, have thematic ties to our return to the Earth - being pulled down by vines, turning to stone, or becoming dust. Music aside, the whole experience is kind of harrowing.

As for the music... well I guess that's pretty harrowing too. Knocked Loose are a metalcore band, but beatdown hardcore seems to be their specific brand. Drums that sound like cannons - no tone and all impact - heavily detuned, high-gain guitars that are a total slog, and screamed vocals that are terribly shrill. This is all pretty standard for the genre, but Knocked Loose does put in the effort to make this thing a little more than 'meat and potatoes.' God Knows features some pretty filthy false-chord screams from a great guest vocalist that I unfortunately don't know the name of. Forced to Stay has a nice transition between a fast blast beat section to a pretty crushing breakdown. And perhaps my favourite track, Return to Passion, sees Knocked Loose branching out into a solid minute of mathcore chaos. The only issue here is that it needed to be longer. Those tracks are pretty solid, but some songs still left me wanting more. When I listen to Contorted In the Faille, I catch myself anticipating a different, more interesting breakdown rhythm than the one given. However, I can't really fault the band for that. Beatdown hardcore, at least from my understanding, is more about making the biggest, heaviest impact, and the best way to achieve that is to keep things very simple and make it hit as hard as you can. So this is coming more from a place of personal taste than me criticizing the band's execution.

This was my first time listening to Knocked Loose, and honestly, the number of times I can say I've heard this specific flavour of metalcore could probably be counted on one hand. Despite how little I know about this stuff, I think I can say that Knocked Loose put out a pretty solid project. The sound is pummeling and unforgiving. The concept, while not all that novel, is executed quite well thanks to some poetic, but unsettling lyrics. Lastly, the brief vignettes between songs add a cinematic element that only enhances the chilling air surrounding this experience. While its release coincides with this Halloween season, perhaps one final compliment I can give it is that A Tear In the Fabric of Life has much more substance and quality than a holiday novelty.