EP REVIEW: A Tear In The Fabric Of Life – Knocked Loose

There are plenty of bands carrying the torch for hardcore in 2021, but no-one does it quite like KNOCKED LOOSE. The Kentucky-based bruisers’ chunky metallic sound has become all but synonymous with the genre in recent years, spawning a host of often quite good imitators in the process. Naturally then, the internet – or at least our corner of it – went into overdrive at the surprise release of A Tear In The Fabric Of Life. Arriving two years after the much-lauded A Different Shade Of Blue, it’s a record that proves once again that this band are in a league of their own.

Clocking in at 21 minutes, A Tear… takes the form of a six-track EP. It comes accompanied by a stunning animated film too, this directed and created by Swedish filmmaker Magnus Jonsson. Together, they tell a devastating tale of grief and loss in the aftermath of a traumatic and fatal car crash. It’s agonisingly bleak, with the lyrics, music and visuals all sitting heavy in the pit of your stomach. Opener Where Light Divides The Holler captures the horror of the initial crash brilliantly – a flickering car stereo obliterated by the first of many violent breakdowns. It’s here where the record’s protagonist loses his partner, and from there we watch him spiral and spiral along a journey penned by the band’s own frontman Bryan Garris.

Matching the record’s ambitious conceptual scope is the music itself. There’s certainly a thick sense of dread and gloom that runs throughout A Tear…, and it’s also surely the band’s most dynamic record to date. For example, tracks like the aforementioned Where Light Divides… and third track Forced To Stay end with moments of quietly unsettling clean guitars which conjure an eerily ominous atmosphere. In between these, God Knows samples THE BEACH BOYS only for this to descend into its own twisted misery. Elsewhere, tracks like Contorted In The Faille and Permanent reveal KNOCKED LOOSE at their most expansive – the latter bringing the EP to a weighty and wide-screen close.

They may have broadened their sound a bit, but make no mistake: this is still undeniably KNOCKED LOOSE. All their attack-dog savagery remains. In fact, A Tear… may be their heaviest record yet, with the band leaning more significantly into a death metal influence than ever before. There are breakdowns and fight riffs round every turn, all these produced to biting perfection by the band’s long-time collaborator Will Putney. Out front, Garris – tasked with giving voice to the record’s grim tale – is particularly mesmerising. His trademark bark drips with pain and passion, lending the EP much of its emotional weight.

With A Tear In The Fabric Of Life, KNOCKED LOOSE prove exactly what makes them arguably the hottest hardcore band on the planet at the moment. Not only do they have the kind of savagery that could level a small nation, but they back this up with tonnes of ambition and emotional heft. Well worth digesting both as a film and as a record in itself, A Tear In The Fabric Of Life is one of the finest EPs you’ll hear all year.

Rating: 9/10

A Tear In The Fabric Of Life is out now via Pure Noise Records.

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