Knocked Loose – announce their first ever Irish headline show for The Academy, Dublin

American hardcore punk band Knocked Loose announce their first ever Irish headline show for The Academy, Dublin on Tuesday, 23^rd June 2026.

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.

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.”

Other boundary-pushing textures pop up throughout the record, from the sample of what sounds like meditative singing bowls that opens the album to “Take Me Home,” with its spoken-word intro, ear-catching auxiliary percussion and brief yet evocative concluding country-song snippet. Elements like these only make the breakneck blur of a track like “Moss Covers All,” a song that Garris says deals with his ever-present longing for the comfort of home, feel that much more urgent.

There’s no ceiling for hardcore in 2024 — even an outfit as uncompromising as Knocked Loose can turn up in mainstream-adjacent spaces and win over new fans. But there’s a center to what they do that will never change.

“Knocked Loose is always going to be a heavy band,” Hale asserts. But, he adds, growth potential is also key: “I want to be able to play the festival to 10,000 people, and then I want to be able to play to 50 in a pizzeria. It needs to come across in both environments. At the same time, in order to grow, we all have all these different influences and different highbrow ideas of where we want to take things. The whole thing has been, how do we add those influences tastefully into what’s still, in essence, a hardcore song that has mosh parts and breakdowns?”

Across 10 tracks and 27 gripping minutes, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To answers that question time and again. These songs are still hardcore, still Knocked Loose, but they explore new vistas of emotion, texture and sonic strategy. Everywhere they’ve been is here on this record, but so is everywhere they may yet go.

Knocked Loose

Plus Special Guests

Tuesday, 23^rd June 2026

The Academy, Dublin

Doors 7pm | 18’s+
Fans can access the MCD Presale from their MyMCD account  at 12pm on Thursday 12^th Match 2026. Login or register at mcd.ie/mymcd

Tickets on sale Friday @ 10am.

Tickets from €41.70 (inc booking fee & venue facility fee) from Ticketmaster.ie on sale Friday, 13^th March @ 10am.
Bookings subject to 12.5% service charge per ticket (max €10.50)