As Knocked Loose chipped away at what would become their third album, they felt the pressure from all sides. Internally, there was the need to challenge themselves as songwriters while retaining the merciless intensity and unflinching honesty that have always been their calling cards — and to also live up to the sizable expectations that followed in the wake of 2019’s A Different Shade of Blue, one of the most acclaimed metallic-hardcore albums in recent memory. Externally, there was a whole new set of eyes on the hard-touring Louisville quintet, following a banner year on the road, during which they’d brought their underground-seasoned sound to some of the world’s biggest stages, finding themselves the unlikely viral darlings of both Coachella and Bonnaroo.

The creative process was arduous, with the band writing close to 40 songs across a span of four years before locking in the 10 tracks that make up new LP You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To. But in the end, vocalist Bryan Garris, guitarists Isaac Hale and Nicko Calderon, bassist Kevin Otten and drummer Kevin “Pac Sun” Kaine honed a diverse, cohesive and savagely aggressive album that both sums up the massive strides they’ve taken during their decade as a band, and asserts their boundless potential going forward. 

“We worked so hard on it and doubted it so much that I think we ended up with the perfect record,” Hale says of the LP, out May 10. “And we didn't know it until it was done. I think that the doubt and the struggle is what made it so special.”

The idea of struggle has been central to the band from the start, from the themes of intolerance, addiction and betrayal that featured on their 2016 debut full-length Laugh Tracks through a frank unpacking of grief on the 2021 EP A Tear in the Fabric of Life. From opening track “Thirst,” You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To follows suit, plunging the listener into a cauldron of mental and spiritual anguish. But the album’s title contains a note of reassurance amid the turmoil. The phrase originates from an experience that Garris, who suffers from what he calls a “borderline phobia of flying,” had during a particularly trying flight. As he battled his nerves during takeoff, the vocalist found himself talking to a woman seated next to him. When he confided in her about his anxiety, she said, “You won’t go before you’re supposed to.” 

“She didn’t realize it,” Garris reflects, “but she took me out of my fear, and she put my mind in a different place.”

Then again, glossing over negative emotions isn’t what Knocked Loose are about. The new songs find them plumbing new depths of loathing — directed both inward and outward — and tortuous anguish. Raging lead single “Blinding Faith” skillfully wields whiplash tempo changes in service of a scathing indictment of religious groupthink, and the hypocrisy that can sometimes accompany an outwardly pious life. “It was just hilarious how many people showed up to church that I knew were rude, horrible, selfish people,” Hale reflects of attending church with his mother in his younger years. “They knew that it made them seem like a better person — or if they said the words, it would redeem them of any negative quality just because they showed face.”

Seething anger also fuels “Don’t Reach for Me,” a track that combines the band’s signature frenzied attack with deliberate catchiness and refreshing sonic variety. After one listen, the song’s refrain — “I dream of a cleansing wave,” roared out by Garris in his patented piercing, rueful bark — loops in the listener’s mind like a prime earworm, setting the stage for future live shout-alongs.