Revisiting the classics: Knocked Loose and Turnstile
Hardcore’s last five years were defined by unprecedented commercial success. A million different factors contributed to the post-pandemic boom/rollercoaster, from viral moments to incredible shows to groundbreaking albums. Of course, several talented bands who were unheralded outside of hardcore prior to the pandemic exploded once shows came back, giving the scene a well-deserved boost in attendance and hype.
Knocked Loose and Turnstile might be the biggest contributors and benefactors in this boom. In fact, many people dubbed hardcore’s new ceiling for popularity “the Turnstile effect” because their commercially and critically lauded 2021 record Glow On helped them ascend to meteoric, unprecedented heights and set the bar for a new wave of “pro-core” musicians to measure themselves by. Knocked Loose doesn’t get centred in conversations the same way, which is interesting, because they achieved similar levels of exposure while playing far heavier and more abrasive music.
Most people agree that both bands “earned” their success. They weren’t industry plants or Johnny-come-latelies. In fact, both were ahead of their time far before the pandemic put everything on pause. So, while their career arcs don’t fit everyone’s definition of “organic”, it’s only fair to concede that neither band made a ton of compromises to get where they are now.
1,500 MFS IN THIS ROOM, EVERYONE SINGING THE WORDS BUT NOW YOU DON’T LIKE IT ANYMORE.
Still, the scene is finicky about tacit approval. Both bands’ newest records colour beyond the boundaries of what most people consider “hardcore”. You can’t say either band is bad, but it’s also not cool to like things that trend on TikTok. In the land of hardcore discourse, both acts are currently banished to the purgatory of “I only like their old stuff”.
For Turnstile, that encompasses their two Reaper Records EPs from 2011 and 2013. For Knocked Loose, it’s their 2014 EP Pop Culture and once divisive 2016 full length Laugh Tracks. Everything else has been banished to the nether realms of “uncool” for the next five years until enough time passes and we can finally admit some of that other shit slaps.
Funny enough, I was a late-comer to both bands. I missed all four “canonical” releases when they dropped and have not spent a ton of time with them since. So, in the interest of discovering what’s cool with “the kids” I went back and gave all the aforementioned records a proper revisit. What I found is honestly quite interesting.
Turnstile’s first real release, Pressure to Succeed, came out in 2011. I didn’t find out about them until this MetalSucks “State of the Scene” address going into 2015. Which makes sense, given what I liked at the time. Turnstile started with a bit of buzz due to their “Trapped Under Ice side-project" status, but Reaper Records was cranking out hype bands in the early 2010s and none of them appealed to me.
I already disliked TUI because they had muscles and got laid. Turnstile wasn’t even the most hyped TUI spinoff. I remember hearing and downloading the Diamond Youth record when it came out. They seemed like the post-TUI band most destined to take off at the time. Pressure to Succeed wasn’t even on my radar, and if it was, I doubt I would have liked it.
The most interesting thing about Turnstile’s debut EP is how much it sounds like 2011. They’ve pushed against the outer boundaries of what I expect from hardcore since I first discovered them. Hearing their local/regional band-style mishmash of popular-at-the-time ideas makes me chuckle, though I must admit they even do that well. Pressure to Succeed is indebted not only to TUI and their influences, but the entire Mid-Atlantic umbrella of United Blood hardcore along with what I would generally describe as “the Bridge Nine sound”.
BANE ZIP-UP SPOTTED AT 4:15!
To be fair, I doubt everyone in the band was of legal drinking age when their debut dropped, and the other members probably weren’t much older. They also flirt with a bit of post-hardcore, most notably on the song “New Rules”. The opener “Death Grip” is an all-time Turnstile track, even though it got them soft-cancelled by Pitchfork six years later for having lyrics written by a heartbroken 20-year-old jock.
Compared to the band’s later stuff, though, this EP falls kind of flat because it can’t decide if it wants to be Naysayer, Merauder or Fugazi. The ambition is present, and the riffs are good, but ultimately Pressure is B+ Reaper-core that doesn’t creatively measure up with the rest of Turnstile’s catalog.
Knocked Loose is another band whose formative prime I missed. I didn’t discover them until well after they formed in 2013. I moved to Toronto in 2017 and started going to local shows for the first time in a couple years. I found the band’s first EP, Pop Culture, during a catch-up binge on Spotify. I liked it well enough, but I’d be lying if I said it cracked my rotation.
Pop Culture sounds like the product of Acacia Strain fans who had a eureka moment after hearing Code Orange. Reviewing something by writing a list of bands it evokes is generally bad form, but much like Pressure to Succeed, Knocked Loose’s first EP is a charming mashup of random shit they were into at the time.
KL were trying to filter their deathcore tendencies through the lens of stuff like Code and Disembodied, but the influence of “less cool” bands like Emmure and Every Time I Die is definitely present, especially in the song structures. I also hear some “Midwest wolfpack” style riffing along the lines of concurrent bands like [redacted] and [redacted]. Vocalist Bryan Garris even shares some of his rhythmic patterns and earnest lyricism with bands like Touche Amore and Defeater.
Speaking of Garris, his performance is the glue that holds Pop Culture together. The musicianship is fine, but I don’t think KL would have made it beyond Oldham County without their frontman. He innately understood, even at that young age, how vocals help give a song structure. His ability to make parts pop and keep things moving with relatively linear lyrical narratives turns these tracks from collections of decent riffs into memorable songs.
Still (much like Pressure to Succeed), the EP is a mishmash of ideas cobbled together by kids who were either still in or just out of high school and as a result, feels like a time capsule from a different era.
Release two is where both bands start to stand out.
Knocked Loose went from sounding like 2014 hardcore on Pop Culture to sounding like 2023 hardcore on their 2016 LP Laugh Tracks (I know there’s a split in between, I don’t care). Granted, they weren’t beating the Code Orange plagiarism allegations at the time, and after revisiting I Am King, I think the verdict still stands.
“Counting Worms” is basically “My World” minus everything that makes the latter an incredible song. Knocked Loose probably ripped the chromatic slam parts that give Laugh Tracks its post-pandemic feel directly from Code Orange. Even then, LP1 is where you start to hear KL’s influence on the next ten-ish years of heavy hardcore.
I Am King spawned an entire generation of imitators, but Code Orange were both so dialed and well-studied that it was hard for new bands to truly emulate what they achieved on their landmark record. Knocked Loose, being less experienced and more influenced by modern sounds, were probably an easier benchmark for new bands to hit. KL songs are more approachable and kinetic. Guitarist Isaac Hale is also heavily influenced by death metal and deathcore, which plants his style right in today’s zeitgeist.
2025 heavy hardcore kids are way more familiar with shit like Whitechapel and Waking the Cadaver than the pre-Jane Doe Converge records Code Orange pulled from. In that regard, I think Knocked Loose both presaged deathcore’s acceptance in hardcore and helped it happen by opening the VFW hall doors to kids who saw them on tour with Beartooth.
At the time, though, established hardcore kids hated that shit. Knocked Loose were not considered a “real” hardcore band. They basically got g-checked when Axe to Grind had them on the podcast to talk about obscure Louisville bands like The Enkindles and Squirrel Bait. The band held their own and were essentially given the pass once people figured out Isaac played in Inclination and booked shows in Louisville.
By that time (early 2018) the snobs had turned on Code Orange. While many of those people never embraced Knocked Loose, the band were allowed to continue and eventually proved their street cred to a new generation of kids by doing cool, smaller bands and maintaining a huge presence in the influential Louisville scene. Code Orange completely lost the plot and started dropping absolute dogshit while the Louisville boys only got heavier and more extreme on subsequent releases. These days, Knocked Loose is headlining the biggest hardcore festival of 2025 and I’m not even sure if Code Orange are still active.
Turnstile, on the other hand, hit taster’s choice status when their second EP Step 2 Rhythm dropped in 2013. This is where the Baltimore band’s ideas congealed to become the singular sound we recognize today. It’s clear they spent most of 2012 listening to Leeway’s Desperate Measures, which helped them strike a good balance between their chunky hardcore roots and alt-rock ambitions. Much like Eddy Sutton, vocalist Brendan Yates wasn’t afraid to bust out the occasional melody, but in a way that felt natural and not cloying for commercial success.
It would take another record, 2015’s Nonstop Feeling, for the songwriting chops to fully develop. Only one of Step 2 Rhythm’s non-instrumental tracks is under three minutes long, which makes the EP drag in places. Still, this is where Turnstile went from a promising product of the Reaper Records farm system to a band with their own fully formed vision.
Turnstile is nobody’s textbook definition of melodic hardcore, especially before Glow On, but by mining the most accessible parts of Leeway and Bad Brains, they created something catchier and more hummable than any concurrent Rev Summer or Shai Hulud rip-off.
Step 2 Rhythm is still hard by most people’s standards, but it’s laced with absolute earworms. That’s a lethal combination, and while detractors existed, Turnstile rode the line to become one of the 2010s most beloved hardcore bands. People will claim they stopped listening after this record, but the band were still moving entire rooms full of real-deal hardcore kids after the pandemic. The same goes for Knocked Loose, who alternated touring with butt-metal bands, but elicited notoriously violent reactions when they played hardcore shows.
So, I’m finally caught up with the eras of Turnstile and Knocked Loose I wasn’t around for. I still think both bands’ best material came after the records in this piece, but you can absolutely tell, even in their earliest incarnations, that these bands were destined to be special.
We also can’t understate how many kids they filtered through the door and the impact that has on newer bands. I think Turnstile is directly responsible for how bouncy and indebted to Bad Brains/NYHC some of today’s “adjacent” stuff is. I also think Laugh Tracks would feel right at home if it came out two years ago on DAZE Records because so many younger kids, whether they know it or not, learned the language of heavy hardcore from Knocked Loose.
Like most hardcore bands who outgrow the genre, it will be interesting to see how these two are remembered. Knocked Loose just got announced as headliners for Sound and Fury 2025, which is a set I’d kill to see. Some people will never give KL their flowers, but I think headlining a hardcore fest in the prime of their commercial success will only further cement them as a canonical band.
As for Turnstile, their next record is the first one I don’t find myself excited for. It feels like they’re drifting further from hardcore. They could be cast out, recontextualized as something different, or embraced for their formative early material along the lines of something like Snapcase. Maybe hardcore kids will eventually embrace the whole catalog. I still think Glow On is an excellent record.
Regardless, the earliest Knocked Loose and Turnstile material is an interesting case study on bands who were destined for success. Just how far that success would take them probably surprised the bands as much as anyone else, but I have a hard time saying it’s not deserved.
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