ALBUM REVIEW: Losing What We Love – Knuckle Puck
KNUCKLE PUCK are one of the most beloved pop-punk bands in the scene. They’ve developed a loyal fanbase since their inception, first with their debut album Copacetic, and then much the same with its 2017 follow-up Shapeshifter and 2020’s 20/20 after that. Now they are back with Losing What We Love, which follows on from last year’s Disposable Life EP. With a focus on creative collaboration in the writing process, whilst also expanding upon their sound and keeping things fresh and tackling topics such as death, destruction and chaos, this album marks a new chapter for KNUCKLE PUCK.
The album starts with the aptly-titled A New Beginning. A fast-paced song, the upbeat music is actually a good cover for the lyrics, which talk about “bad luck that keeps chasing me“. In fact, this is a common theme throughout the album. It is a staple of pop-punk, but the band put their own spin on it. Take The Tower as another example; the lyrics speak of embracing the inevitability of death, with some screams and a spoken word bridge thrown in. Whilst the spoken word part is unfortunately hard to hear as the music overwhelms it, the rest of the song is a tour-de-force in pop-punk. The title track is another upbeat song, whilst Groundhog Day is a mixture of both slow and fast, which breaks up the more relentless pace of the previous songs.
In fact, the album does fall a little bit into a pop-punk trap of having very fast-paced and high energy songs one after another. To be fair, the high energy is infectious and you can’t help but dance to it, but fortunately the second half of the album tries different things, such as having a mellower start that moves into a fast-paced song. This breaks things up, and means that the album is somewhat less monotonous. Out Of Touch is a mid-tempo song that diverts a bit from the rest of the record sound-wise. It even experiments with vocal distortion – not excessively, just enough to show that the band are willing to explore different avenues without losing their core sound.
Furthermore, the change in pace could signal the journey that the album takes us on, from an upbeat beginning to a slow and sad ending. Fool is the closing track, and it is a slow paced one. Even though musically it picks up a bit during the second half, it still has a melancholic sound to it. Whilst the way the album goes from the upbeat, happy-go-lucky first half that hides the sad lyrics to the slower-paced second half that embraces the sadness might make it sound disjointed, it isn’t. The album slowly transitions into the change in pace, which makes it feel all the more organic.
Ultimately, KNUCKLE PUCK are going in a new direction, but they haven’t stopped embracing the fun of pop-punk. Losing What We Love showcases a more mature side to the band, and they embrace it. The pacing throughout is excellent, and the change in tone as the album develops shows that the band are metamorphosing into an exciting new stage.
Rating: 8/10
Losing What We Love is out now via Pure Noise Records.
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