Live Review: Knocked Loose - Electric Bristol, 29/06/2026
Knocked Loose and friends put on yet another beautiful display of vicious hardcore sets, treating Electric Bristol to one of the most hectic and vicious nights of music to take place within its four walls.
There has never been a better time to be a hardcore fan, and it’s very obvious that Knocked Loose are a key driving force of this widespread popularity and acceleration of the already budding underground scene. Having been around the block a vast number of times, playing shows all over the globe for several years now, they have blown past expectations time and time again, only seeming to grow as they influence both the music and the culture itself. For many people, Knocked Loose has become a jumping-on point for the hardcore scene, and seeing so many of those fresh faces get lost in the bewilderment and joyous chaos of live hardcore shows will create lifelong memories for newcomers and veterans alike. To accompany the widespread explosion of their presence in modern metal, they have continually platformed a vast number of smaller yet just as impactful bands. In the same way that Metallica are currently giving them a world stage to bring their tantalising live show to the wider metal scene, they have had a brilliant and rotating line-up of powerhouse up-and-comers to support them on their club shows across the country.
The first of these was the California Beatdown hardcore band, Initiate, a band that have been staking their claim at shows and festivals alike. Both their sound design and stage presence were absolutely impeccable, intertwining classic punk-driven beatdown chord styles, perfectly timed double-bass pedal work, and phenomenal, scathing vocals to create a clean-cut and truly awesome sound that got the crowd’s feet moving in a trance-like state of 2-stepping and head-banging. Initiate ran through an amalgamation of unreleased tracks and established bangers from their 2023 album, serving as the perfect warm-up for the evening and introducing a traditional hardcore style band into an otherwise metalcore-inspired line-up.
Second on the bill were London-based metalcore-inspired band 50 Caliber. Having never had the pleasure of experiencing this band before, this quickly became one of the best sets I have ever gone into blind. Their 7-string guitar chugs shook the walls of the venue from beginning to end with a blunt and ridiculously heavy tone. Each member’s musicianship was on evident display throughout every segment of their set. Many of the tracks were from their album ‘Internal Bleeding’, a project that has since been on repeat at every opportunity. 50 Caliber started their set unknown to the majority of the crowd, but certainly left ingrained in the memories of the fifteen hundred people in attendance.
The final set before the main event kicked things into overdrive was the infectiously rhythmic Bodyweb. Having now seen Bodyweb twice in three days, they seem to improve drastically with every show they play, which comes as a great surprise, as they have been stellar from the very start. Injected with limitless influences, Bodyweb have harnessed all the tools of genres like nu-metal, grunge, shoegaze and even jungle elements. This depth of influence has led to the creation of one of the most innovative and fresh hardcore bands in recent history. Their serpentine guitar and bass riffs pierce through the barbarous drum pieces and create an otherworldly stage presence, one that is amplified tenfold by the tenacity and energy of the bands themselves. The new sound that accompanies Bodyweb feels like a natural evolution of the subgenre they reside within, and as far as openers go, I don’t think there could be a better pairing than our headline act and this Leeds outfit teetering on the edge of their own stardom. After burning through their thirty-minute set, using that infectious energy to whip the crowd into total frenzy, it was fantastic to see the energy in the room remain high for the main event after such a brilliant slate of supports, but as the lights dimmed on the Bodyweb logo, the room knew that judgement day had arrived.
As the ambient noise rose and the now-famous illuminated cross was presented to the audience, anxious excitement rose through the crowd. It was finally time; many fans in the room were bearing witness for the first time, while many were years into their experience with this band. Regardless of how long you had been listening, one thing was clear: when they move, you move; when they go heavy, you go heavy; and when they ask for everything, you give it to them. This was something that the Bristol crowd were more than prepared for, and as the band came on to ‘Blinding Faith’, the room detonated into a combination of spin kicks and flying limbs that did not cease until the final bell. The early portion of this set was an eclectic mix of their biggest hits from all of their albums, with songs from ‘A Different Shade of Blue’ and ‘You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To’ gathering a perpetual stream of energy from the crowd, who were all trying to keep up with the relentless energy of the band’s performance. Witnessing Pacsuns drumming in this show was absolutely mesmerising as every note was played in perfect tandem with the rest of the band, carrying a vicious pace that would likely terrify your average Metallica fan, something I wish I could have witnessed on their tour opening for the legendary band. This monstrous and dynamic sound is what makes the band so special, and while the sound on the record is special and era-defining, Knocked Loose is a band that needs to be seen to be believed. As the show ran to its midpoint, it seemed that this crowd would never run out of energy thanks to songs like ‘Belleville’ and ‘Deadringer’, causing the perpetual motion of the pit to test the strength of the floor supports, these tracks accompanied by Bryan Garris’s constant calling for even more pressure really put the crowd and venue staff through their paces, but they were certainly far from finished.
The second half of the show contained just as many bangers as the first half, something that the crowd would continue to respond very well to, keeping the pits open and constant even through the lulls of the chilling clean riffs of ’Take Me Home’. this setlist and the show as a whole proved the dedication that fans have to this band as while the coarse and boundary pushing vocals of Garris may be hard to understand upon an initial listen, every word, even to some of the deeper cuts on the setlist were screamed in unison. Electric erupted into a choir of fry screams for every song, but the standouts of the set all sat within the back half of the setlist. Three tracks stood out more than anything to me, the first of which was the lead single from their most recent album ’Suffocate’ this track exploded in popularity around the time of the album's release and has been a large driving force in the recent success of the band, every word rippled through the crowd and back to the stage as every voice from the front to the back strained to match Garris’s incomprehensible tone, something that has always been a clear identifier in their music. other standouts from the back half of the set were the track that everyone had been waiting for the whole time and the song that changed the trajectory of the band ‘Counting Worms’ and the all-new metal and hip-hop hybrid ’Hive Mind’, both tracks contained an incredible energy and seeing their sound evolve into what it has become now while still being able to rip through the old tracks emphatically is another reason the band are so special.
As the set closed on ‘Everything is Quiet Now’, the Bristol crowd, now on a post-gig high of endorphins and war wounds, left with a plethora of new memories, new experiences and new bands to dig into. For many, Knocked Loose will be the first hardcore show they attend, but the passion and energy they have for their music and the scene around it almost always ensures that it will not be their last. There could not be a better representative for the quality of the music in the scene and the values it upholds than the Oldham County natives and being able to witness their journey to the top is mesmerising, even if they did blow up on tin Tok because the lead singer barks funny, they have taken that and not allowed it to define them, creating some of the coolest music in metal today.
Photo Credit: Jared Leibowitz
Words by Josh Pook
