Best of Budapest & Hungary

The Hungarian audience will get to experience the overwhelming live energy of Knocked Loose twice this year. Before tearing up the stage opening for Metallica, the hardcore punk five-piece will play a headline show at Akvárium Klub on May 15.

    Even the world’s biggest stages haven’t changed their underground sound. Since forming in 2013, they have been crowd favorites at major festivals including Coachella and Bonnaroo, and they are currently touring alongside Gojira and Metallica.

    They have released three albums so far, with their latest record from 2024 bringing them to the doorstep of a Grammy nomination in the metal category. With You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To, the band set out to challenge themselves as songwriters while preserving the relentless intensity and brutal honesty that have always been their trademark. At the same time, they had to live up to the high expectations created by their 2019 album A Different Shade of Blue, widely regarded as one of the most acclaimed metalcore–hardcore releases of recent years.

     However, vocalist Bryan Garris, guitarists Isaac Hale and Nicko Calderon, bassist Kevin Otten, and drummer Kevin “Pac Sun” Kaine rose to the challenge. Their album from two years ago further expanded their already significant fanbase. With it, they proved that hardcore has no boundaries, and that even a no-compromise band like Knocked Loose can appear in spaces close to the mainstream while still gaining new fans. The core of their music – which they promise will never change – remains intact on this album as well.

     “Knocked Loose will always be a heavy band,” Hale emphasizes. At the same time, growth remains essential: “I want to play festivals in front of 10,000 people, but I’d also play in a pizzeria for 50. It has to work in both places. At the same time, when it comes to evolving, we all have many different inspirations and ideas about where to take the music. The question has always been: how can we tastefully incorporate those influences into something that is still essentially a hardcore song?”

    Since the massive success of their album, the band has already released another new track. Hive Mind, featuring Denzel Curry, continues the same brutal yet unmistakable sound fans expect.

    This year, Knocked Loose can be caught in two very different settings: fans can go wild at their first Hungarian club show at Akvárium Klub on May 15, and then double up by seeing them open for Metallica as well. One thing is certain: Knocked Loose is a band worth paying attention to. Ticket sales for the concert start on March 13 at 10 a.m.