REVIEW: Year of the Knife – No Love Lost [2023]
Artist: Year of the Knife
Album: No Love Lost
Year of the Knife have been a ubiquitous name throughout the underground in recent years, whether its for their rapid rise to notoriety for delivering brazen and unabashed aggression or for more somber reasons. Even though the accident involving the entirety of the band—but most notably vocalist Madi Watkins—chronologically comes after the recording and completion of the band’s latest full length release No Love Lost, it’s hard not to hear the release in the context of such a traumatic incident. Indeed, No Love Lost resounds—a head-on impact of pulverizing hardcore volatility and razor-sharp metallic intensity, Year of the Knife demonstrate why their reputation is rightfully earned, devastating the listener with a filler-free and blunt taste of bitter, agonal brutality.
No Love Lost is as sharp as the knife that serves as the band’s namesake, cutting a path straight to the listener’s auditory cortex in the most direct way imaginable. From the opening seconds of “Sometimes,” the band establish that the same scathing and vaguely metallic brand of hardcore they’ve become synonymous with still runs strong through their collective veins—though in a more diverse state. “Sometimes” is home to a deviously bouncy groove that serves as it’s backbone—just as “Alice” and stand-out single “Your Control” forsake the bounce for a more vicious pounce at the listener’s windpipe. Here, pummeling percussion works hand-in-hand with riff-heavy fretwork, dipping into sporadic, spine-splitting breakdowns. All of this is underscored by a bold bass tone that shines during those more groove, dance-friendly moments (see: “Sometimes” and “Return the Agony”). When the bass isn’t grooving away, it amplifies the meaty chugs and plodding kick drum that hammer each ruthless breakdown home. While the riffs and grooves help Year of the Knife stand out from the pack in terms of metalcore-dusted hardcore acts, it’s the band’s breakdowns that really draw the listener in and seal the deal, as few bands are capable of delivering violence the way Year of the Knife can.
Where Year of the Knife continue to separate themselves into a tier of their own is with the vocal element from Watkins. Every song is a bitter onslaught of harshly-spat syllables and shrill screams—in the best way possible. “Your Control” shines, with a repeating turn of phrase belted out over a crunchy, abrasive breakdown. Other songs—“Wish” and “No Love Lost” continue to dominate lyrically, using both introspection and angst to underscore bitter aggression. Other songs, like “Heaven Denied” shine as a raw and relentless hardcore anthem, where the lyrics become less about words and more about the energy and intent with which they’re relayed. The unparalleled energy behind every word Watkins howls makes the story of Year of the Knife’s 2023 accident that much more harrowing and tragic—but also makes Watkins’ personal story of overcoming immense injury even more uplifting, adding something victorious and intangible to both her performance and the release as a whole (not that it needed it to reign a cut above the band’s peers in the first place).
Hardcore? Metallic hardcore? Metal-adjacent hardcore? Hardcore-adjacent metalcore? Genre and style arguments aside, there’s little denying that No Love Lost kicks ass—which is just about what anyone would expect from Year of the Knife at this point in their career. Direct, devastating and to-the-point, No Love Lost is a no-frills-attached approach to eviscerating and energized heavy music. While the band themselves might not break new ground, they do what they do outstandingly well, serving as a bastion to the up-and-coming acts within the genre as an archetype for success. No Love Lost is a must-listen release when it comes to hardcore or anything in its neighboring genre, and stands proudly as Year of the Knife’s finest release to date.
8.5/10
For Fans Of: Weapon X, Momentum, Ingrown
Connor Welsh
