Laugh Tracks
Knocked Loose is a metal-core band from Kentucky that has been making some fast moves and is rising quickly in the hardcore and rock scene. The band’s songs are comprised of all the intense elements of traditional metal-core, punk, and hardcore music. Their most recent release, “Laugh Tracks” has really impacted heavy music as a whole, turning many ears back to metal after being let down for so long. The album features slow and slamming breakdowns, chaotic instrumentation, and thrashed, painful vocals. The way that vocalist Bryan Garris screams these profane but thoughtful words make the listener suddenly thirst for revenge. What really sets Knocked Loose apart from most new metal music is the substance within their lyrical content. The significance of their poetry needs acknowledgement in a world of meaningless metal.
Lyrical Analysis
The opening track “Oblivions Peak” opens right away with a huge, booming pre-breakdown set up. The guitars riff something that makes the listener know that something evil is approaching. Then, the song makes a tempo change and transitions into an unforgiving, maddening breakdown that will unwillingly force one’s head to bob along. The lyrics speak of the hypocrisy and sugarcoated nature of, presumably, the Christian church. “I won't cater to a coward, that hides behind a fraternity, just so he can feel empowered…” Here, Garris uses the term “fraternity” to describe the community of a church and perhaps how he won’t give his time, money, and energy to a pastor or priest. It really sounds like he is frustrated with the complacency and conformity of the modern Christian and he also feels that religion is pushed on the public way too severely. “But the pressure, I feel the pressure to be like you…”
The second track “Deadringer” is about wanting to feel as important and significant as someone he has been compared to. He speaks on wanting to “dance with the dead”, perhaps a relative who he finds simiarlities with and wants to be like. But, he stews over the negative, but logical side with his words “my tombstone was made at birth, my coffin is on my back, wrapped in chains I carry burden…” Garris speaks about feeling pressured to amount to whomever he bas been compared to his whole life, but in a way he admits he wants to fulfill similar goals. “Wish I could be like them, wish I could get away with murder, wish I could get away with it all, it's their turn to watch me…”
The next track “The Rain” is a metaphor for the inevitability of death. Garris speaks on knowing and acknowledging “the end” rather than ignoring it as if it will never come. Negative or not, it’s true and his words hold value. It almost seems as if he’s mocking the Christian belief in life after death with the words “And you can try to make things up, but lost time was just way too much, a sentenced revoked from choices you've made, you've taken your chances, you won't be saved.”
The fourth track on the album is “Blood Will Have Blood”. The lyrics speak on wanting to prove something to someone who doesn’t or didn’t believe in a person. The phrase “blood will have blood” originates from Shakespeare in which the general idea is that the blood of the murdered will always seek out the blood of the murderer. In other words, there will always be justice in instances of injustice. Garris proves a simple, yet effective lesson and lets the listener know that revenge will always be had.
The fifth track “Counting Worms” is the shortest track lyrically and musically. The lyrics are “I wrote a song about getting better, it's a feeling I can't remember, counting worms.” Garris conveys a feeling of total hopelessness. He believes that his conditions will never improve. “Counting worms” is a metaphor for being buried in the ground, where worms can be found. Perhaps he feels dead while on this earth and can already imagine himself being buried underground.
The next track “My Heroes” appears to be about the harsh reality of the people that we look up to, in that none of us are saints. Our idols, celebrities, or just people that we believe are impeccable have done just as much wrong as we have. We never imagine death being real for the people that we want to be like, but unfortunately they’re human just like us. Garris is afraid to fully admit this to himself, “No longer blind, to deaths cold touch, no longer hurt, just scared to burn, like the rest.”
The seventh track on the album is titled “Billy No Mates”. This song seems to speak on drug addiction and how it gets in the middle of important relationships and Garris wants to feel that guilt that he believes he deserves. He says that he used to judge his friends who were addicted to drugs but then got addicted as well by association. “I put the drugs in between us, I told myself that it changed you, but I'm the one who changed.”
“Last Words” is a really depressing scenario of an individual dying but not feeling fulfilled. Garris sounds like he wouldn’t be proud of himself even in his last moments of life. “I've accepted my last defeat, and I won't let them see me.” It’s almost as if he’s ashamed to be on his deathbed because he was never able to prove himself the way he theoretically wished.
The next track “No Thanks” is another deep track. Each song on this album gets more and more intense on the thought of death and the reality of it. We are always told that we will be fulfilled on our deathbeds but the reality just may be that we will never truly be happy with how our lives end up. “I've been ashamed all my life, but I have never felt like this, I put myself in my grave, and the dirt is spilling in.”
The second to last track on the album “A Fetish” is a dark, demented wish of wanting to murder someone rather than see him or her suffer some other way. Most have never felt a real urge to kill another human but it’s interesting to observe someone who truly might. Garris could be speaking theoretically from the perspective of a made up maniac, just to get a little insight on what it might be like to be that crazy of a human being. “And it wouldn't be the same, if it wasn't me to pull the trigger, and my eyes roll back, as your spirit leaves.”
The last track on the album “Laugh Tracks” has the same name as the album. It really highlights what the album exists to convey, which is a message of hopelessness and the harsh reality of inevitable death. Garris also touches a little bit about feeling so outcast in a world of people who just do what they’re told and never dig in to meaningful things in life. It’s almost as if he’s telling the listener to forget every word that he just gut-wrenchingly screamed. “Forget my words, fall back in line, do what you're told. Fall in line, erase my soul.”
Although this album is overall very dark and not positive in any way, there is still a lot to learn lyrically. Knocked Loose has a huge future ahead in the hardcore music scene and they are cutting through a lot of the mediocre bands that seem to birth every day. Their chaotic instrumentation, harshly true lyrics, and condemning vocals make them one of the most interesting metal acts to arise of lately.
